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UP FROM THE CITY
STREETS

Courtesy of Wide World Photos
GOVERNOR ALFRED E. SMITH

UP FROM THE CITY

STREETS: Alfred E. Smith

A Biographical Study in
Contemporary Politics

NORMAN HAPGOOD

AND

HENRY MOSKOWITZ

ILLUSTRATED

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Published, November, 1927
Second printing, November, 1927
Third printing, January, 1928
Fourth printing, March, 1928

Contents

CHAPTER JlAGE

I How a Twig Was Bent . 3

II The School of the Tiger .... 40

III Awakening 55

IV Proving His Mastery 100

V Opportunity 131

VI In the Governor's Chair . . . .165

VII Major Purposes 218

VIII Ideals and Business 278

IX Facing the Nation 303

X The Age and the Man . . . -334

Index . 341

Illustrations
Governor Alfred E. Smith . . . Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

The Old House Where Alfred Was Born . . 8

Four Years Old, at Coney Island .... 9

Mrs. Catherine Mulvihill Smith (the Governor's

Mother) 24

An Old Tin-type from the Family Album . . 25

Four Tin-types from the Family Album . . 88

At Sixteen 89

Assemblyman and Mrs. Smith and the Five Little

Smiths at Far Rockaway about 1910 . . . 89

No. 25 Oliver Street 104

Downtown Tammany Club 104

Thomas F. Foley, Governor Smith's Political God-
father . . 105

On the Stoop at 25 Oliver Street . . . .232

Governor Smith and His Sons . . . . 232

The Governor and His Two Younger Sons . . 233
The Governor in His Private Zoo . . . .296

The Governor Pays His Annual Visit to the Boy

Scouts 296

An Annual Event on Washington's Birthday . . 297

Addressing the "Old Neighbors' Club" . . 297

The First Meeting of the New York State Cabinet 312

Governor and Mrs. Alfred E. Smith .. . :. ,., 313

UP FROM THE CITY
STREETS

Chapter I

HOW A TWIG WAS BENT

THIS book is the story of a boy who grew up in a region
where Tammany Hall was supreme. The Fourth Ward
and the parish of St. James in which he lived were sur-
rounded by poverty and vice in terrible forms. Ability,
character, and some fortunate influences have made his
life one of unbroken triumph, and that triumph has been
based on solutions of the hardest problems in modern
politics. He is the first of our national heroes to be born
amidst din and squalor. His story suggests that in the
future our vast cities may do better by humanity than we
have feared. It is possible that their evils may be reduced,
and that their sons may show not less energy, persistence,
and initiative than have come heretofore from the silences
and the long labor of the ax and plow.

Life on the East Side of New York when Alfred Smith
was born was an even fiercer struggle for existence than
it is now. The standard of living was lower, the signs of
brightness and hope were less. As we look closely into
the environment, however, we shall find many elements
tending to favor activity, independence, quickness of
mind, and persistence. It will be decades before we reach
any firm conclusion about whether our crowded streets

[3]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

are less promising soil for greatness than the solitary fur-
row and the village store. If we look out at our changed
world with open vision, we have little to guide us to dog-
matism about how much the city will solve 5 how much
of resourcefulness and invention she will draw out.

A big city is always a collection of neighborhoods, but
perhaps with modern rapid communication this feature
tends to become less vivid. At any rate, when Al Smith
was a boy the neighborhood aspect dominated. Today
New York is the largest Negro city in the wo rid ; it is
the largest Jewish city; it is the largest Italian and the
largest Irish city, as well as the third largest German
city. In some respects these elements tend to scatter. In
Smith's boyhood there was a distinctness about the York-
ville neighborhood, the neighborhoods of Harlem, Chel-
sea, Greenwich, even of Gramercy. The neighborhood of
the lower East Side was often called the Battery section.
In 1873, when, on December 30, Alfred Smith was born,
the nature of the population and its distribution was some-
what different from the situation today. In that vast col-
lection of nationalities, religions, and cultures, there is a
constant ebb and change. From the lurid accounts which
have been written about the East Side, it appears to most
minds, especially to those living far away, that it stands
for little except poverty and crime. Poverty and crime
there have been, but mixed with them there have been a
reality and a color of existence that have lent a charm and
magnetism for those in New York who can think outside

[4]

HOW A TWIG WAS BENT

of conventional grooves. The vast majority of the people
on the East Side have been God-fearing, home-loving,
upright people. A person who knows this sea of human
beings does not think of them as all alike. The Italian has
kept his religion, his habits, his emotions, and under the
handicap of a strange language, he has been organized
by leaders who knew our customs. The Jew has made his
Zion here and has brought more philosophy and more
intellectual striving than any other of its elements. We
must not think of the East Side merely in terms of its
sordid environment, of the wilderness of tenements which
greets the eye as one looks at Alfred Smith's neighbor-
hood from Brooklyn Bridge. This neighborhood is teem-
ing with social and intellectual movements, with institu-
tions of charity and culture, with movements represent-
ing social, political, and economic strivings which the
people support out of their meager earnings, led at times
by devoted leaders dedicating their lives to causes.

Before any of these large tides of immigration, there
arrived the Irish. They spoke the English language.
That was already a vast difference between them on the
one hand, and the Germans, Jews, Italians, Greeks, Slavs,
and scattered nationalities, on the other. There was also
a profound psychological difference.

The American point of view, as built up on a new con-
tinent from English traditions, did not strike the Irish-
man as something alien and difficult to understand. He
entered into it with ease. In many cities of the country

[5]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

he became the political leader after a few years, thus
giving a striking demonstration of the smoothness with
which he entered into our civilization.

The neighborhood around the Fourth Ward in which
Alfred Smith's earliest tendencies were developed is a
completely definite, distinct world of its own in the
many-colored universe of the East Side. It is bounded
on the east by a river, a busy stream interesting to look
at, covered with energy 5 to the south its limits are set
by South Street bordering this river 5 to the west is the
Bowery, and to the north is East Broadway. Within these
boundaries lay much that was bad in the city. On Water
Street were rows of houses of prostitution conducted
especially for sailors. Along the Bowery were the resorts
of the derelicts, though east of it were intellectual amuse-
ments and searching conversation in the cafes. One of the
institutions on the Bowery north of the Fourth
Ward bore the name of McGurk's Suicide Hall. There
were the armies of doomed women whose hectic laugh-
ter continued perhaps three to five years before they
sank into unknown graves. There were the men
whose money for drink and gambling and living was
taken from these women for the return service of acting
as go-betweens in their relations with the police. Walk-
ing down the Bowery in the region of Chatham Square at
night is not an altogether reassuring experience, but it
is a much milder one now than it was half a century ago.
There is corruption still, and there are derelicts, but pro-

[6]

HOW A TWIG WAS BENT

fessional prostitution is gone, and that great institution,
the saloon, no longer exists openly -, where it does exist
secretly, it is not the center of social life it used to be.
Enclosed by such unpromising neighbors, the parish of
St. James could not, of course, fail to have close contacts
with them. Broken men and women were continually
passing through its streets. It is extremely important,
however, for the purpose of making the right picture of
the soil in which a strong man grew, to realize that the
worst characters to be met with in that parish were not
part of it. No boy could grow up in that region and not
be familiar with the harshest that life afforded. On the
other hand, that harshness was not part of his own exist-
ence. The 18,000 people who composed the parish were
wholesome. The differences were not fundamental be-
tween them and the kind of people who would have
made up a town of 18,000 in the Middle West. They
were unquestioning, like the people in the Middle West.
A point of view of life had come to them and they ac-
cepted it. The people in the Middle West might be Pres-
byterians 5 these were Catholics. The people in the Mid-
dle West might have come from England and Sweden
and Germany 5 all of these came from Ireland. But there
was no dissent in either case. Virtue was virtue, vice was
vice. The ideas of the parents did not differ profoundly
from those of the children. What differences did exist in
the degree of separation between parents and children
meant more harmony in this East Side oasis, as com-

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

pared with a group of the same size in another part of
the country.

Life usually centered around the church, just as it does
in a smaller place. Where Al Smith was born, the church
around which life centered was St. James's. In this parish
at a critical period of his life there lived a man whose
influence on him was a blessing. Earlier there had been
Father Farrelly, a good-natured, easy-going man, popu-
lar with everybody. When it was reported that there was
to be a newcomer, one Father John J. Kean, great was
the excitement. Reports from uptown where he was at
work were to the effect that he was a learned man, dig-
nified, and the population feared a loss of the old cozi-
ness. The mood was summed up well enough in a rather
innocent riddle that started on its way at that time: Why
is St. James's Church like a Fourteenth Street theater?
Because it has a Tony Pastor. That was the name of the
owner-manager of a famous theater of that name on
Fourteenth Street.

On the day when Father Kean made his first appear-
ance, the Church was crowded as never before. Fifteen
hundred persons were packed into it to size up the new-
comer. It was true that he was dignified He was hand-
some. His beautiful tenor voice as he sang the Mass was
his first friend with the expectant audience. They walked
out of the church in silence, their hostility gone, at least
by the time they had heard him preach later in the same
day.

[8]

From the pastel series, "Governor Smith's New York," by Bernard Gussow
THE OLD HOUSE WHERE ALFRED WAS. BORN
174 South Street, under the Brooklyn Bridge

FOUR YEARS OLD, AT CONEY ISLAND

HOW A TWIG WAS BENT

That he was strict turned out also to be true, but this
strictness did not mean unpopularity. He put new energy
into the life of morning, afternoon, and evening. There
was little to do that was not connected in some way with
the church. "Did you go to church every day?" some one
asked the Governor. His answer was, "What else was
there to do?" Father Kean organized fifteen societies,
which included a Rifle Guard, a Longshoreman's Protec-
tive Society, the St. James's Union, the Ladies' Sodality,
the Free School Society, and a choir of twenty girls. The
Governor still remembers Annie Rush, the volunteer or-
ganist, and how he and another boy by the name of Cos-
grove pumped the organ for her at choir practice. He still
likes to imitate their motions as they pumped in time to
the music, as many a little boy has done in his church in
a smaller town.

Father Kean never permitted an advertisement of a
saloon to appear in church programs. For five years he
fought a saloon-keeper who permitted women in the back
room of his saloon, and at the end of the five years drove
him out. No drop of liquor ever appeared on church
premises for any occasion whatever.

Not infrequently leaders of the East Side — local rabbis,
journalists, and priests — would resent the association of
that neighborhood with the crime and sordidness of the
Bowery and the moral plague-spots surrounding it. St.
James's Parish was more an organization for the simple
conduct of life than it was a seminary for splitting hairs.

[9]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

The Christian Brothers did the teaching in the parish"
schools.

From 1880 to 1887, from the age of seven to the age
of fourteen, Smith was an altar boy. Most of the time
he served the seven o'clock Mass and for a short time the
six o'clock Mass which required him to get up at five-
fifteen. He began by waking another boy in the neigh-
borhood, named Keating, by shouting at him from the
street. It is related in this connection that Smith's voice
was loud even then. One day some one not pleased with
the performance which woke him so early in the morn-
ing threw a soap-box at Smith. From that time on he
allowed Keating to awaken himself.

Father Kean had come to the parish the year before
Al Smith began this work. There were special classes for
those boys who served at the altar, in order to keep them
from being handicapped in their school work.

The father of Smith drove a truck. He was a sociable
being, fond of conversation and greatly liked in the neigh-
borhood. His name also was Alfred Emanuel Smith. He
was a facile talker and story teller, which made him at-
tractive to the Sandy Hook pilots who, when they came
to shore, frequently looked him up to hear his stories.
He was appointed a volunteer fireman in 1857 and Par~
ticipated in heroic rescues in his day. His business in life
was to guide two heavy horses through the chances and
mazes of the city, then without automobile or motor
truck. This man had been born in 1840 on Water Street

HOW A TWIG WAS BENT

near Oliver, which is only a few blocks from the spot,
that was the birthplace of his famous son. Of the few
impressions which Al retains of his father, one of the
earliest, as a little boy, is his father's return from labor,
grimy with dust of the streets — more neglected than they
are now — wet with streaky sweat, peeling off garment
after garment, plunging his neck, hands, and arms into
cold water to cool off. He was a large man, of greater
stature than his son, with a thundering voice and a won-
derful memory, which was a valuable asset to pass along
with the rest of his vigor.

The father was not a great success as a business man.
He was more interested in doing favors than in making
money. One of his favorite comments was, "A man who
cannot do a friend a favor is not a man."

The Governor, like all of us, remembers but scattered
pictures of these earlier years. He recalls a walk with his
father one wintry day across the wooden planks of Brook-
lyn Bridge before it was finished. The father was eager
to enjoy the proud privilege of saying that he was the
first to cross the Bridge before its completion.

In the warm months the father sometimes took part in
the swimming and other occupations of the boys along
the shore. One of the few childhood memories Smith
recalls is of his father's throwing him into the water with
a rope tied to his body; the end of this rope his father
held, to teach him to swim. Most of the boys became
good swimmers. To this day there is no exercise Smith

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

enjoys more than a swim in the surf at Coney Island.
There was as much reason for them to swim well and
climb well among piles of lumber and pyramids of boxes
and crates, dodging safely among horses and trucks, as
there is for a country boy to be skillful with trees and
animals and guns. He remembers gratefully the chance
not only to learn to swim in the East River, but to play
baseball and handball outside of the warehouses. Tired
out, the little fellows would sit and rest on the roof of
a shed, watching the longshoremen hoist gigantic crates
or lower them among the holds of the ships. Perhaps
their talk was not altogether different from that of boys
of the same age in the vacant village lot or on the street
in front of the barber shop, but it was probably less
philosophic than the talk Lincoln heard in the streets of
Springfield, Illinois. It dealt less with ideas than with
events.

The neighborhood in which young Al dwelt had at
that time many houses which were survivals of the aris-
tocratic past of the East Side, for it is well known that
a century ago the East Side was a neighborhood where
many of the well-to-do and the socially elite dwelt. Some
of the side streets, such as Henry, Madison, and East
Broadway, had shade trees. At first these houses were
occupied by one family, then by two or three. The shade
trees were finally rooted up because of their interference
with traffic, and particularly with fire-fighting, as they
prevented ladders and hose from reaching the windows

[12]

HOW A TWIG WAS BENT

of upper floors. Some of these trees can still be seen on
East Broadway.

The view from the Smith house must have been at-
tractive. The docks were uncovered, and one saw the
river with the boats plowing through it. At that time
one of the popular means of transportation was the
Harlem boats which offered what was then rapid transit
from lower New York to Harlem. APs mother remem-
bered the family doctor looking out of the window and
saying, "This is like a view from an ocean liner."

When Al was a very small boy he did not wander far
from home. His first playground was directly in front
of his home, and that part of the river front was the
New York end of Brooklyn Bridge. "The bridge
and I," as he puts it, "grew up together. I spent a lot of
time superintending the job. I have never lost the mem-
ory of the admiration and envy I felt for the men
swarming up, stringing the cables, putting in the road-
ways, as the bridge took shape. Ten years after I was
born they opened the bridge. I still remember the excite-
ment in our part of the town when word came that many
had been killed in the crush at the opening. It was on
May 30, Decoration Day, 1883. The bridge had been
formally opened a few days before. My father, mother,
and sister and I crossed over to Brooklyn on the bridge.
We came back by the Fulton Street Ferry. Late in the
afternoon of Decoration Day, there was an immense
crowd on the bridge crossing in both directions. I seem

[13]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

to remember that somebody in the crowd at the New
York end yelled that the bridge was falling. There was
a rush for the New York end. Those rushing from the
bridge met a throng coming from Park Row, producing
a jam in which eighteen or twenty people were trampled
to death.

"Some of us boys from the waterfront hurried to Park
Row when we heard of the accident. It was growing dark.
We crowded as close as the police would let us. They were
taking away wounded people, and policemen were piling
up quantities of hats and clothing taken from the victims.

"That was my first view of a great calamity. I did not
sleep for nights."

As a character, Al Smith's mother contrasted with the
father. She was the strict one of the family. She also had
Irish sociability and friendliness, but not in the same
degree; on the other hand, the seriousness with which
she applied herself to the family and its bringing up was
inevitably, for many reasons, greater than that of the
father. She was around the home all day.

When the father died, the children were still young.
The family traditions were strong. It never would have
occurred to Mrs. Smith to put any limit on the respon-
sibility resting on her for the upbringing, comfort, wel-
fare, and morals of her children.

Her name was Catherine Mulvihill, and she was born
in 1850 in a store on the corner of Dover and Water
Streets, a few blocks away from the house on South

HOW A TWIG WAS BENT

Street. Smith's grandmother on his mother's side was
educated above the average of the Irish women who
lived around South and Water Streets. She attended a
convent in Ireland and was known for her skill in needle-
work. For that neighborhood she was quite conspicuous
as a literary scholar, which probably meant that she had
read a little more than the average woman of the parish.

Smith recalls that it took his grandmother sixty days
to get here on a sailing vessel and that she landed at the
foot of Dover Street at one of the well-known dock
landings around the neighborhood of South Street.

It was in 1871 that his mother was married. We know
a good deal more about her than we do about the father,
for she lived to be an old woman, and the tie between
her and her son was not one merely of duty, but of ten-
der love. There is no difference of impression among
those who in later life saw the Governor in his relation
to this old woman. The speed and ardor with which he
sought her out when he entered the house, the way he
knelt to receive her blessing, the pride with which he
saw that she was in the best seat at functions marking his
success in life, all threw a bright light on that family
intensity, mutual need, mutual help, and genuine love,
which was a big thing in the world in which this boy
grew.

The firmness with which the mother undertook to
guide the children is within the direct knowledge of com-
paratively few, as far as relates to the years immediately

[15]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

following 1873. We know, in general, that she under-
took to know what the children were doing, and to see
that they were doing right. That was the point of view
of all the mothers of the parish, so that certain problems
that face the parents of today were unknown among the
Irish-Americans of the Fourth Ward. We are not, how-
ever, depending solely on tradition going so far back. In
later years Mrs. Smith lived with her daughter, the wife
of John J. Glynn, long a member of the New York po-
lice force. To the very end, habits of supervision per-
sisted in her, although she was able to toss them off with
sufficient lightness to avoid making a problem with a gen-
eration she little understood. During the years when she
lived with Mrs. Glynn, she used to keep awake until the
grown-up grandsons came in at night. She could see under
her door the light which was put out when the last mem-
ber of the family went to bed. She would then flash a
light, look at her watch, and make note of the time. In the
morning she was likely to make some remark about the
hour. Nobody took it seriously, and once Mrs. Glynn
asked her mother why she bothered about the grand-
children as long as she had no part in that responsibility,
whereupon the old lady laughed and passed it off with a
remark that she liked to know what was going on,

Mrs. Smith was as much born to live by her own efforts
as was the truckman, her husband. There was nobody in
that family, and there were few if any in the neighbor-
hood, who conceived of life as anything except an exist-

[16]

HOW A TWIG WAS BENT

ence based on individual effort. Theories about what
society owes to the individual were not topics of conver-
sation. Everybody worked, and everybody took work
for granted. This woman had two trades. She could
make hoopskirts and she could make umbrellas.

When her husband died in 1886, he had been ill for
two years. At the time of his death he was a night watch-
man. Mrs. Smith was ill the summer after her husband's
death, following the two years of strain, but she turned
in and did more work for the family income than she
had been doing before. For two and a half years after
the death of her husband, Mrs. Smith went back to her
trade as an umbrella-maker to keep Alfred in school.
In a family like this not much was put in the form of
philosophic statements about duty. The rules were mostly
simple, and simply expressed. One of the sayings of Mrs.
Smith that has come down to us is, "Show a child the
difference between right and wrong, and it will choose
the right." It has also come down to us that she put much
emphasis on telling the truth and on not making excuses.
These simple rules of conduct were heartily backed up
by her husband.

It was also related of Mrs. Smith that she was de-
cidedly attentive to the dress and neatness of the chil-
dren. The Governor was one of the most neatly dressed
boys in the neighborhood, and ever since he has always
been a careful dresser, even though his sartorial habit

[17]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

most commented on is the angle at which he sometimes
wears his hat.

Although Mrs. Smith's life was the typical hard-
working career of a woman in a poor family, she was by
no means without her diversions. Perhaps the most dis-
tinctly outlined of these was connected with the fire de-
partment. She had a brother whose name was Peter Mul-
vihill. She was fond of this brother and wept when he
left the neighborhood. Peter was a fireman. This exciting
fact meant a good deal to the whole Smith family. It
meant a good deal to his sister. She used to go to "all
the fires." In those days it took longer to put out fires
than it does now. They sometimes even lasted two or
three days. Light meals often had to be taken to the fire-
men. A familiar interest in the Smith household was the
preparation and carrying of those meals to the scene of
action. Coffee was carried in large cans. Peter was a vol-
unteer at first, and finally became a professional. Alto-
gether he was connected with the fire department forty-
five years. He had such a strong resemblance to the
Governor that at the first Smith Inaugural he was taken
for his father.

Peter seems to have been an attractive man, popular in
the family, and it was doubtless through his influence
that Al at a tender age occupied a privileged position in
the fire department. Not only was Al the proud possessor
of a pass that enabled him to take an intimate part in
actual fires, but he was recognized as a person ;whose

[18]

HOW A TWIG WAS BENT

presence in the firehouse in the neighborhood was regular
and welcome. Such little chores as fell to a boy were
always done directly and well, according to every witness.
Moreover, the firemen liked him, as everybody likes him.
His gayety, friendliness, singing, and dancing contributed
much to the firemen's hours of leisure, and he was amply
repaid by the thrill of being part of the organization that
listened for the alarm to open the door, start the great
horses in motion, and dash to the rescue.

Alfred's earliest ambition in life was to be a fireman,
and ever since his interest in the fire department of the
City of New York has continued. In later years he be-
came one of the real Buffs and an honorary member of
the Officers' Association.

The house on South Street, only recently demolished,
in which the Smiths were living when Alfred entered the
world, was No. 174. It was an old narrow house and had
only two windows on each floor. The Smiths lived on
the top floor. They had four rooms — a front room, two
bedrooms, and a kitchen. Above these was an attic where
the children often played. On the second floor was a
well-known barber shop owned by a German called Mor-
genweck. This is where the Sandy Hook pilots came to
get shaved and where they frequently met Al's sociable
father. On the ground floor was a candy and fruit shop.
In the Smith home the boys of the neighborhood were
welcome,

Al was about twelve years old when he began to carry

[19]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

newspapers. He set up in business with twenty cents.
From the proceeds of what he made on one batch he
bought more. The small amounts he brought back to the
family in the evening filled a genuine need. But he had
plenty of time for play then, and he has had plenty of
time for play all his life. It is easy to invent things about
the childhood of men who have become famous. One
thing is certain, however 5 from his earliest years Al was
an organizer and leader. He brought the boys into the
attic and managed amateur theatricals. His sister still re-
members being tried out by her brother for a childish
theatrical performance and then being discharged by him
without ceremony because her performance was not up
to his artistic standard. She remembers also the apologies
for noise that her mother often made to the good-natured
people downstairs who were the barber and his wife.

The fact that the Smith attic was a center for the play
of the neighborhood contrasts rather sadly with what was
happening in many parts of the East Side, where the
rallying point of the boys was some street corner without
supervision. It is almost a commonplace of social study
these days that delinquent children come from unhappy
homes. The Smith house was a happy home.

In spite of certain enthusiastic traditions, there is no
reason to suppose that Al made any great impression as a
scholar. He did his work easily and was always steady
and always liked. He was proficient in public speaking,
and he won a silver medal in an oratorical competition

[20]

HOW A TWIG WAS BENT

among the boys of the parochial schools of New York
with a recitation on the death of Robespierre. This silver
medal now reposes in the jewel box of Mrs. Smith. It is
a simple triangle hung from a small silver bar and has
engraved on it, "Alfred E. Smith for Elocution."

Two boys were selected to compete from every paro-
chial school in the city. From Smith's school one repre-
sented the seniors and one the juniors. The one who rep-
resented the seniors later became Father Grady, whom
Smith lost sight of for many years until he met him acci-
dentally in a church in Mamaroneck in the summer of
1927. Smith represented the juniors. The winners from
all over the city took part in a contest held in Manhattan
College in Manhattanville.

The boys had a great frolic on this occasion. They spent
their money, which should have been kept for carfare
to ride crosstown, on bolivars (big round molasses cakes,
popular with the boys of that day, costing a cent apiece)
and bottles of pop, and had to walk about two miles or
more through what was then a country district to make
their last nickels available for the long ride from I2jth
Street and Third Avenue to Chatham Square.

No decision was given at the time. Two or three days
later the Brother in charge of the school told the boys
that he took great pride in announcing that both prizes,
senior and junior, had been won by the school of the
parish of St. James.

On those Friday afternoons of impromptu speaking,

[21]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

when the students had to talk not from memory but from
notes, Alfred had originality of expression, a natural
manner, and magnetism. His old teacher, Brother Bald-
win, refers to one characteristic in school which has always
been with him — a marked power of concentration. He
was always able to concentrate on the meat of the sub-
ject he was interested in and to remember the essentials.
He never burdened his mind with excess material which
could not be of use to him.

Two years after his father died Al, then fifteen, left
school and had his first regular job, as a truck chaser
(business hunter) for a truckman, where he worked from
1888 to 1890.

In 1890 he was an office boy and assistant shipping
clerk in an oil factory.

In 1892 he worked in the Fulton Fish Market as a
combination salesman and assistant bookkeeper for John
Feeney & Co. at $12 a week and all the fish he wanted.
He soon had experience enough to pick a good bluefish
to take home to his mother. He worked from 4 A.M. to
4 P.M., and on Friday started at 3 A.M. He had a half
holiday on Saturday.

From Fulton Market at that time there was distributed
more sea food than from any other point in the world.
It still is the largest receiving and distributing point out-
side of Boston. The stalls still stretch along the water
much as they did, although details of the scene have
changed. In those days fishing was not so highly organ-

£22]

HOW A TWIG WAS BENT

ized. The fish came in little sailing smacks, each smack
owned by its captain. As the smack came up to the
wharves, the captains waited for the various dealers to
put in their bids. Now, while some of these small vessels
still exist, most of the fish are brought in by steam
trawlers, which wait out at the fishing ground until they
receive wireless messages that prices are right. The lively,
personal bargain and sale are gone.

The market at its best existed at a time when the
women of New York did their own marketing and it was
considered the proper thing for the female head of the
house to drive to the market and select what she wished.

What was true of the woman with a carriage was
equally true of the woman who did not have one. She,
too, selected her fish, meats and game and carried them
in a basket.

Here Smith picked up some homely similes. Describ-
ing a person he did not like, he referred to him as having
"an eye as glassy as a dead cod." Of another person he
said, "He shakes hands like a frozen mackerel."

In the one year Smith worked here, he was doing busi-
ness with older men. Picturesque life all around was con-
nected with the activities in which he was engaged. There
were many restaurants specializing in sea food. An oyster
fry, a crumb fry, a regular fry were familiar dishes, and
many restaurants bore the name of Oyster Bars. Such
dishes were standard for lighter meals, as a steak was
standard when a more serious meal was sought.

[23]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

Next he got a job in Wythe Avenue, Brooklyn, at a
steam pump place where he was called receiving clerk, a
polite name for a common laborer handling steam pipes.
He had now grown big enough and strong enough to
take such a job, and it increased his earnings.

He got up every morning at six, ate heartily of ham
and eggs and coffee prepared by his mother, and walked
down to the ferry, carrying with him the lunch also put
up by his mother. Such was the nature of his work up to
the beginning of his political career.

In February, 1895 (through the influence of Henry
Campbell), he was appointed by Robert Noonan as a
subpoena server in the office of Commissioner of Jurors.
He worked here from 1895 to 1903, a period of eight
years, until named for the Assembly.

He was earning $75 a month when he married. When
his son, Alfred, Jr., was admitted to the bar recently and
received his first day's retainers as a lawyer, the Gover-
nor said, "I wanted him to have a little perspective on
life and I said to him, *A1, when I was your age I was
married and supporting a family on less per year than
you have received as retainers on this one day. Don't think
life is all as easy as that.' "

Meantime, as he grew older, another social element
entered his life. It was the club, always an outstanding
institution in the neighborhood of the East Side. There
were two kinds of clubs which provided social life for
young men, the ordinary social club of which the Sey-

[24]

MRS. CATHERINE MULVIHILL SMITH (THE

GOVERNOR'S MOTHER)
In the yard of her home at 9 Middagh Street, Brooklyn

AN OLD TIN-TYPE FROM THE FAMILY ALBUM

Governor Smith's father; the Governor, about six; his Uncle Peter

Mulvihill, and his cousin, Tommie Mulvihill, taken about 1880

HOW A TWIG WAS BENT

mour Club was one, and the political club. He belonged
to both kinds. There was an additional club which played
a great part in the life of Al Smith in his boyhood and
youth ; that was a parish club located on Henry Street
where the St. James's Parish Union met.

The Governor kept a scrap book for a long time, with-
out any particular system, in an old Wells Fargo Express
order book. The exhibit has genuine importance, as it
shows what was attracting his attention at various pe-
riods. For a stretch of years speaking and drama prepon-
derate. At the age of ten there is a school entertainment,
one of the items of which is "Recitation, Master Alfred
Smith." As he grew older and entered into the regular
drama, he became not only the leader and producer, but
also the foremost actor. The parts which fell to him,
after the villains, were singing and dancing parts and
comedy parts, and he developed to a point where he
played what are called straight leads. As time went by,
Smith's passion for the theater became more widely
known. A rumor spread around the district that he had
received an offer from Daniel Frohman to join his fa-
mous stock company, but this rumor must be looked upon
as expressive rather than accurate.

As he grew older, and passed to the political club, the
amount of attention given to the drama did not lessen.
For a good part of his youth he acted in about two plays a
year. This in itself meant hard work. It not only helped
to develop a memory which was prodigious by nature and

[25]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

to express his natural love of wit and of speech, but was
also one of those wholesome activities that took up his
energy and formed a bulwark against temptation. As an
actor Smith was conscientious and never missed his cues.
He was able to coach the actors when their less gifted
memories failed them. The Governor recalls how in one
act of a performance a dull boy was merely to follow the
stage instructions which read, "draws knife and cuts
rope." The boy had to go upon the stage and cut a rope
at the time when the villain of the drama had almost fin-
ished his dastardly deed. The boy solemnly made his en-
trance on the stage, stalked to the center, drew his knife,
recited the directions before the audience, "draws knife
and cuts rope," and then proceeded to perform the act.

The basement of St. James's Church where the plays
were given had a capacity of about eight hundred seats.
For the size of the place the stage was wide and deep and
the footlights conspicuous. The shows attracted audiences
which packed the old basement to the doors. Where there
is a villain in a melodrama there is almost always a strug-
gle between him and the hero. It was during one of these
struggles that a small boy, with his eyes almost popping
out from excitement, displayed a pistol and tried to hand
it to Al over the footlights, saying breathlessly, "Here
you are, Al. Kill him."

The casts of the St. James players and the audience
which enjoyed their performances have scattered to va-
rious parts of the city, the country, and even the world

HOW A TWIG WAS BENT

Many are married men and women now, fathers and
mothers, and some have grandchildren, but, like Smith,
they have retained precious memories of these old days,
and most of them are members of the Old Neighbors'
Club which meets before election to cheer their Al now
playing a leading role on a bigger stage.

The man who coached these plays is of the opinion
that Smith's experience as an actor has influenced his
public speaking ever since. Stooping down to emphasize
a point recalls one of the gestures in his amateur theat-
rical days. Sometimes the Governor suddenly stops and
takes a drink of water in the midst of a speech. This
habit is also the result of the training given him in his
youth in making dramatic pauses.

A list of some of his roles recalls for us not only the
drama as it was in those days, but also the Governor's ,
tastes and tendencies.

One of the newspapers of the time says of Smith that
he played the principal parts in "May Blossom," "The
Confederate Spy," "The Long Strike," and "The Mighty
Dollar." Of "The Mighty Dollar" it was said by the
newspaper commentator, "Alfred E. Smith, as Hon.
Bardwell Slote, was very amusing and rendered the
numerous speeches of the voluble M.C. from the Kohosh
District with good effect." He is also spoken of in the
press as "the leading man of the St. James Lyceum
Company."

He played the leading part in "A Russian Honey-

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

moon." He was in "The Lost Paradise," by H. C. De-
Mille, in "Hazel Kirke," in "Stranded," in a musical
farce called "The Workers," in that adaptation of Wil-
liam Gillette's called "All the Comforts of Home,"
in a farce called "Turn Him Out," in "The Paper
Chase," in "Incog." Such recurrent events in his life as
his appearances in these and other plays were so carefully
posted in the Wells Fargo book that up to 1896 they
stand out above all other entries.

His interest in the drama was never a literary one. He
was attracted to a play by its acting possibilities and its
moral quality. In the days of his fame he illustrated the
same taste by enthusiasm for "Abie's Irish Rose" and for
"Turn to the Right." Comedy, morality, and sentiment,
not tragedy and not irony, were the elements he sought.
The first play he ever saw was at Niblo's Garden at
Prince Street and Broadway. It was Kit Chanfrau, a
famous actor of the day, in "The Arkansaw Traveler."

He and the other young actors of St. James's Union
were accustomed to seek amusement in the theaters of the
Bowery. They attended the farces of Hoyt. They were
familiar with Harrigan and Hart, and Smith later was
one of those to attend a celebration in honor of that fa-
mous pair. Miner's Bowery Theater and the Windsor on
the Bowery were the leading theater resorts of the neigh-
borhood. To them came not only burlesque, vaudeville,
melodrama, and musical pieces of the day, in which Sam
Bernard, Dave Warfield, Maggie Kline, Pat Rooney, and

[28]

HOW A TWIG WAS BENT

Weber and Fields started their careers, but such leading
actors as Clara Morris and Fanny Davenport. Indeed,
Smith likes to tell of the experiences of some of his
young men friends, who to earn an extra fifty cents a
night, and for the fun of the thing, would act as super-
numeraries with Melbourne MacDowell and Blanche
Walsh when they played on the Bowery in one of the
favorite dramas of the day, called "Siberia" — a gruesome
melodrama of Russian life.

He was fond of Buffalo Bill and of Barnum's Circus
and Museum to which his father sometimes took him,
and his love for the circus has survived, for one of his
pleasures in later life is taking children — his own, his
sister's, and the children of his nephews — to the circus
every year.

Next door to the Thalia Theater was a resort called
The Atlantic Garden, a place frequented particularly by
Germans and their families. Al Smith has always had
sympathy with the social tastes of the Germans, their love
of sitting around in family groups drinking beer, chat-
ting, and listening to music. The patronage of the Atlan-
tic Garden by the Smith family began back when the
father was alive, and the children eagerly looked for-
ward to that part of the trip which consisted of a jelly-
roll for each.

And thus on the Bowery, as well as on the river front,
the pleasantest and most wholesome activities of life were
side by side with the worst. Some friends and observers

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

of those days who are still alive are inclined to think that
familiarity with evil things, remote from the family and
social mode of life, may have been an actual advantage,
a sort of inoculation. Of course, plenty of the boys even
in the Fourth Ward parish acquired undesirable habits,
but it is likely that the percentage of those who emerged
well balanced and vigorous was as high as would be
found in any other unit of the size.

The relation of the boys and the young men to the
girls was attractive. One who looks back at pictures and
fashion plates of those days, at the skirts, trimmings, and
hats, will see a different ideal of female beauty and effec-
tiveness. Just as the clothes of our time are simpler and
bolder, so has there been a corresponding change almost
everywhere in the attitude of women. These Catholic
girls were brought up strictly, with a set of virtues in
which chastity stood very high — an ideal supported not
only by the Church and the parents, but by the acquies-
cence of the young men. Whether many or few of the
men might seek wayward amusements, there was a solid
sentiment among them about the conduct of their own
sisters and the sisters of their friends.

There was, however, plenty of pleasant companionship
between the boys and the girls. With Smith's group in
St. James's parish it was a custom in the evening, as they
grew old enough, to go about the streets singing, and
frequently to stop under the windows of their girl
friends and get them to join in the songs.

[30]

HOW A TWIG WAS BENT

At the club, Father Kean always attended the recep-
tions that were called "ladies' nights." He would go
home about ten o'clock or half past ten, but he sat in
his window almost next door to the church. One night
he saw a group of young men and young girls leave the
reception and go to a saloon on the corner. Innocently
enough they went in and presumably had some beer.
They returned to the dance. What would have happened
if that had been all, history does not relate. They came
out again, however, again visited the saloon for a short
time, and again returned to the dance.

Father Kean went to the next meeting of the St.
James's Union. He introduced a resolution to the effect
that if the parish priest requested any member to be
dropped, that request should automatically cause the per-
son to lose his membership. At the next meeting this reso-
lution was voted on. There were some who objected. A
number were sitting around, more or less ready for trou-
ble, when Smith entered. At this time he was seventeen
or eighteen years old, and had been for years growing up
under the influence of Father Kean. As he puts it him-
self in telling this particular incident, "I was not an
officer of the club, but I was very prominent."

"What are you going to do?" asked the boys, as he
came in.

"I'll tell you," Smith replied. "St. James's Union is
part of the church. It belongs to the church. We coop-
erate with the church and it cooperates with us. If the

[31]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

Father wishes to have something to say about it, I think
he has a right to control the membership. I'm going to
vote for it. I will bet you that after Father Kean has put
his ideas before you, not one of you will vote against
them."

Father Kean entered. He took his seat. First came the
regular business. Then he introduced his resolution. He
rose and spoke. The vote was unanimous. "Good-night,"
he said, and put on his biretta, or priest's cap, and walked
out. The boys looked at one another. A few gathered
around Smith. "Where were all you fellows?" he asked.

The next day Father Kean sent for the young men
whom he had seen going into the saloon with the girls
and told them they were no longer members of the St.
James's Union.

Smith, at the time of the saloon incident, was being
cast more often than he enjoyed for the part of the vil-
lain. A play was to be cast, to be given, as often, for the
benefit of the orphan asylum. The smaller boys and girls
had to sell tickets for the dramatic performances. A free
ticket went to each child who was able to sell four. These
children with free tickets gathered in the galleries, the
boys in one and the girls in another. It was the yells of
the boys that had something to do with Smith's becoming
weary of a perpetual round of villainies. Shortly before
he made the attempt to get rid of such parts, he had been
in a play in which he had proposed to a girl. She refused
him. His next line was, "You will yet be mine." The

[32]

HOW A TWIG WAS BENT

boys in the gallery broke loose in prolonged whistles.
He was smarting under this when he delivered an ulti-
matum against having the villain's part.

The next day he received a message that Father Kean
wished to see him in the evening. When he entered the
priest's rooms, he was kept waiting for a while. Finally
Father Kean entered, took off his glasses with a charac-
teristic gesture, and put his hand on the boy's shoulder.
He never called any one by a nickname. "Alfred," he
said, "we have over two hundred little orphan girls next
door. It is getting harder every year to feed and clothe
and care for these girls." Al replied in four words: "Give
me the part."

His memory reverences Father Kean, not on religious
grounds, which form no part in the picture, except as re-
ligion is the conduct of life. He reverences the memory
of the man, his tireless, self-sacrificing, devoted spirit.

Al Smith fell in love but once, and he fell hard. By
that time he was a well-developed, handsome young
man. Catherine Dunn was a dark-haired girl, more re-
served than the average girl born in the neighborhood.
Her family was in moderate circumstances and had been
able to educate the daughter longer than the family of
the truck-driver had been able to educate its son. The
name of Mrs. Alfred E. Smith's mother was Emily
Josephine Dunn. When the Governor courted Catherine
Dunn she lived with her mother at 3681 Third Avenue
at the corner of i7Oth Street.

[33]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

Those were the days of the bicycle, the street-car, and
the steam engines on the elevated railway which ended
at 1 29th Street and Third Avenue. Alfred Smith was one
of the most enthusiastic bicyclists in the whole city.
The Bronx was a long way off. It was as far then from
the region where Smith lived, measured in time and ef-
fort, as Albany would be now. There were no motors.
There was no subway. There was no direct route by trol-
ley, or even by horse-car. It was a serious undertaking to
get to the Dunns' house, but Alfred got there with fre-
quency, hard-working citizen as he was.

He was making a good deal of money for those days,
and when he turned up at the Bronx home of the Dunns,
he had a perfectly good derby hat, a cutaway coat, those
markedly striped trousers which were dear to the youth
of the period, black shoes, what was proudly called a four-
in-hand tie, and the kind of collar known as a stand-up.
He looked all right to Catherine, and it was obviously
only a question of waiting until the family was convinced.

Catherine had more dresses, and better ones, than the
girls in Smith's social group. When she went to an enter-
tainment she sang sentimental songs and Smith was sure
she sang them divinely. The Wells Fargo book contains
a treasured program recording, "Songs — Miss K. Dunn"
— for Catherine was familiarly known to her friends in
the neighborhood as "Katie."

From his weekly earnings he was now able to save suf-
ficient money for the requisite flowers and candy. Look-

[34]

HOW A TWIG WAS BENT

ing ahead, there were certain advantages. Food was plen-
tiful, good and cheap. There was no housing crisis. Often
a young couple obtained two or three months' rent free
from the landlord on going in. Clothing was a smaller
item proportionately than it is now.

Well dressed as he was, At did not count among his
possessions a dress suit. There was nothing remarkable
about that. Such a piece of property was expensive j it
was seldom used, and the custom of hiring it when
needed was widespread. On a certain evening there was
to be a big dance in a Harlem hall and Catherine had
consented to go. It was grand enough to call for evening
dress. Al went to a Jewish tailor in his neighborhood, put
down two dollars, and went away with a box, which he
carried out to the Bronx. In Catherine's house there were
the necessary facilities for him to emerge from his street
dress and appear in his evening grandeur. He went into
the room belonging to Catherine's brother and opened
the box. Evidently there had been some carelessness in
the tailor shop, and it is not altogether easy to under-
stand, at this date, how the young man who was to be-
come the very type of efficiency could have overlooked
such an important point. The coat and the waist-coat fitted
well enough. The trousers simply would not do. He was
slim and five feet seven. The trousers had been made for
a man who was short and decidedly stout. There was no
time to go back and make the change. Catherine's brother
was built like Al, but he did not have a dress suit. For-

[35]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

tune smiled, however. The brother had a pair of dark
blue trousers which he turned over to his sister's friend.
So Al went to the party, with his combination uniform,
and had a happy dance with Catherine. He has often
summed up the result with the simple words, "I got
away with it."

It was always late when he went home. Indeed, his
Sunday evenings were likely to be so late that getting up
early on Monday morning was none too easy. As he re-
turned on the "L," he tried to sleep, in order to be fresh
in the morning. Often he carried a big umbrella. It was
a possession of much value. It happened that a group of
his friends would sometimes board the same train before
it reached Chatham Square, the station where he got off.
He heard them one night whispering a plot to steal his
umbrella while he slept. With his eyes shut as if asleep
he fastened it by a thin cord to a button on his coat and
then slept on. They attempted the hoax and failed.

At another entertainment, in which Catherine was a star
performer, there was an unexpected addition to the pro-
gram. The program itself is fondly pasted in the Wells
Fargo book. Two young men, Smith and a friend, pro-
ceeded out to the Bronx to join the audience, but before
the affair ended they had volunteered a song and dance
of their own. This contribution Smith notes with his pen
on the edge of the program in jubilant mood, indicating
success.

[36]

HOW A TWIG WAS BENT

These trips to the Bronx to see Catherine, along with
various excursions to the country to ride his bicycle, and
an occasional trip of the drama group to give a perform-
ance out of town, gave the youth the only impression of
the real country he ever had. The birds to which he was
accustomed were those that find themselves at home in
the city streets or sailing over the river. The grass and
the trees known to him were isolated bits in the great
city, not the forests of nature. The ocean he knew from
Sunday trips to Coney Island and Far Rockaway.

The course of true love ran no doubt as smoothly as
it ought to run, and the reasonable obstacles were over-
come before the sixth of May, 1900, on which day Cath-
erine Dunn was led to the altar by Alfred Emanuel
Smith. They were married at St. Augustine's Church at
Franklin Avenue and i67th Street. A Catholic priest
seldom leaves his own parish to officiate at a wedding.
Father John Kean united Alfred E. Smith and Catherine
Dunn, and the Governor likes to tell about this aspect
of his wedding. It stands for a friendship rich in grati-
tude and reverence.

This marriage has turned out to be what that happily
married couple, his parents, and that other happily mar-
ried couple, her parents, would have hoped. Not in all
the years has there been any break in the satisfaction it
has given. Smith often expresses serious things lightly.
Many a time he has had occasion to remark, apropos of

[37]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

one situation or another, that he is a married man and a
father, and that he needs to have his wife and his chil-
dren with him. Their children have been five.

When Alfred Emanuel Smith, Jr., bearing the same
name as both his father and his grandfather, was a few
weeks old, he took part, as we learn from the Wells
Fargo book, in a successful dance at one of the neighbor-
hood picnics.

Alfred Emanuel Smith, Jr., was born on January 26,
1901. He was married October 16, 1924, to Bertha Mary
Gott. Emily Josephine was born December 23, 1901.
She looks like her mother and has some of the vivacity
of her father. She was married on June 5, 1926, to
Major John Adams Warner. This union has recently
brought to the Governor his first granddaughter, Mary
Adams Warner. These two Smith children were born on
the third floor of a small flat at 79 Madison Street.

The third child is Catherine Alice, named for her
grandmother. She is thought to be like her in tempera-
ment, and like her great-grandmother Mulvihill she is
skillful as a needlewoman. She was born April 15, 1904,
at 9 Peck Slip. Arthur Williams, the fourth child, was
born August 20, 1907, at 28 Oliver Street, and Walter
Joseph at 25 Oliver Street on December 28, 1909. On
February i, 1925, Arthur married Anne Hess. He has
two lusty boy babies, Arthur Jr., and Walter.

For a long time the Smiths occupied only half of the
house at 25 Oliver Street. It was not until he returned

[38]

HOW A TWIG WAS BENT

at the beginning of 1921, after his first governorship,
that the family occupied the whole house.

To the observant eye that block in Oliver Street is still
marked by some of the finest residences in the entire city.
These houses were built when taste was good. They are
harmonious and simple in line and admirably constructed.
Oliver Street is not far from South Street and around the
corner from St. James's Church. Within an area less than
one-quarter of a mile square, the five Smith children were
born, and in the same area were born their parents and
their grandparents. For over a century the Smith family
has been associated with a region surrounded by the un-
fortunate, but itself one of the finest as well as one of the
oldest parts of New York City.

[39]

Chapter II

THE SCHOOL OF THE TIGER

THE Seymour Club in the Fourth Ward of the Second
Assembly District, although organized as a social club,
was sometimes spoken of as an anti-Tammany club. It
was not in truth anti-Tammany, for there was no anti-
Tammany movement, properly speaking, in the neighbor-
hood. The club-like people accepted the democratic or-
ganization without question, and the political divisions
were personal. When the newspapers spoke of the Sey-
mour Club as anti-Tammany, they meant that its mem-
bers were opposed to Patrick Diwer, who was the Tam-
many leader of a neighborhood where many a bloody
fight was fought. There was never any question about its
regularity.

Tom Foley was an earnest man who understood the
business of a local leader. His job was to see that politics
in his district were run efficiently for the purpose for
which primarily politics existed. That purpose was to look
after the welfare of the individuals who resided in the
district.

Foley allowed no trifling by anybody who wished to
take part in the political game. The district was full of
needs. Almost any family was likely to want something.

[40]

THE SCHOOL OF THE TIGER

Perhaps the father had died and there was not money
enough for the funeral. Perhaps one of the boys had
been arrested, justly or unjustly. Perhaps a man who had
a job on the police force had been dropped or moved to
an undesirable location. Perhaps laborers had to be placed
in the street cleaning department, or a transfer effected
for one of his constituents from one department to an-
other, or an increase in salary negotiated.

If a man in that district showed any interest in politics,
Foley knew exactly what to do with him. The word
"contract" in New York politics has two meanings. One
is the familiar meaning in which it relates to business
enterprises. The other is special to the organization. A
contract in that sense is something to be done. You
might, for example, meet even today an assemblyman
from the Second District, or a member of Congress, to
say nothing of humbler workers in the political field,
and he might show you a bunch of papers that he had in
his pocket. One would make it necessary to go out and
see the Democratic leader of the Bronx about one job,
another would call him down into the business district to
see the employment manager of a certain corporation, a
third would have to do with a city department. Every one
of them would mean keeping somebody in his job or get-
ting somebody into a job. Each one of such tasks is a
contract.

The word "contract" is still in the Governor's vocabu-
lary. At a meeting of his cabinet on February 23, 1927,

[41]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

It was necessary to get the consent of the Finance Com-
mittee of the Legislature to a certain move. Governor
Smith observed: "All right, let Joe Wilson take the con-
tract." Joe Wilson, director of the executive budget, was
unfamiliar with the term. He said: "What is that, Gov-
ernor?" The Governor replied: "Take the contract to go
up and serve notice on these men that they should take
that out of the bill."

Another word that prevailed in local politics was "bit."
It meant the same thing.

Smith's marriage did not lessen the amount of this
work he had to do. It was taken for granted that it was
part of life. Just as men in the country gather at the
store, swap stories and talk politics, so in the congested
neighborhood of a big city they gather, not in one store,
"but in many, on street corners, formerly in saloons, some-
times in their clubs. In a place like the Fourth Ward, a
young man interested in politics does not make a distinc-
tion between his social life and his service to the com-
munity. He helps to meet the needs of the people with
unconscious human kindliness. There is no articulate phi-
losophy of service. It is neighborliness, which on election
day is translated into votes.

The votes on election day, however, do not come with-
out organization. The translation into results is brought
about through skill, concentration, and persistence seldom
known to the up-town reformer.

The district leader is a slave from morning until mid-

[42]

THE SCHOOL OF THE TIGER

night, and for three hundred and sixty-five days in the
year. No exertion is too great, no favor too insignificant.
The virtues that spring from such a standpoint are, above
all, willingness to help, loyalty, and respect for a promise.
From the political standpoint, one of the most important
lessons that the young man gradually absorbs is the
meaning of team work. Many a political leader has ac-
complished something for his country by courage and
originality as a lone wolf. That was not the school in
which Smith grew up. Although he has expanded beyond
the Fourth Ward in all directions, he has never rejected
it, or ceased to use those human and technical lessons he
learned on the streets of New York. He has gone ahead
without giving up team work, and team work has meant
continuing to give as much to his organization as he could
give consistently with his ever-increasing responsibilities
and his clarifying purposes.

It is to be remembered that the Irish genius for poli-
tics up to this time has been, with few exceptions, the
genius of the Ward. It is in close, warm, personal contact
with local life that the Irish have excelled. That the Irish
in New York have been almost altogether Democrats
has been one element in making the character of the
Democratic party in that city. There is in Tammany
plenty of little graft. When doing favors is the basis of
politics, little graft is a natural development. When there
has been big graft, it has been occasional, not character-
istic. If a friend of a Tammany leader happened to be

[43]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

a member of a public utility corporation, the Tammany
leader would do a favor for him, as naturally as he would
do one for the widow of an undertaker, but on the whole
his friends would not be so highly placed. Only at one
point has the contact of the Tammany leaders with big
business normally been close, and that was in local con-
struction work. With the Republicans, however, the re-
verse has been the fact. Not being so closely organized
from the neighborhood up, but rather from big business
down, their city and county and state machines have had
less petty graft and more of the larger, smoother, more
hidden and more lucrative relations between the politi-
cian and the man with money.

Never would Smith have had a chance of promotion,
if he had not been regular in his attendance at the Club
and unfailing in carrying out contracts. Tom Foley was
at his post in the clubhouse three hundred and sixty-five
days of the year and he expected of his lieutenants not
the same but similar devotion. Biding his time, and keep-
ing his ideas to himself until the proper moment, has al-
ways been one of Smith's traits. He saw clearly in his
manhood that, from the point of view of a man of serious
ambition, the patronage system is an obstacle. If six po-
licemen want one job as plainclothesman, the politician
who obtains it for one of the candidates makes one friend
perhaps, but certainly five enemies. Seeds of his growth
beyond the conceptions of the organization were already
in him, but he did not talk about such things. A young

[44]

THE SCHOOL OF THE TIGER

man who dealt with Tom Foley in the organization did
what he was told with the precision of the army. To
do anything else was to have a swelled head, and a
swelled head was political death.

For twenty-three years Foley led. In that period, the
character of the neighborhood changed with the shifting
tides of immigration. In the early days of his political ac-
tivity the population of the district was almost wholly
Irish. The Irish were so successful in politics that up to
1886 the Irish flag used to hang on the City Hall on St.
Patrick's Day. In Foley's district, as the Irish prospered,
they moved away and the Russian Jews came in. The
Jews also prospered and moved on, giving way to the
Italians, who in turn were followed by the Greeks. This
particular neighborhood today has more nationalities than
any spot in the city, because it borders on the water front.
Through these changes Foley's leadership was not shaken,
or even successfully questioned. Master of the situation,
he always delivered satisfactory results. It is an accepted
part of the East Side philosophy of life, of which Tam-
many Hall is a mere expression, that personal loyalty is
high among the virtues. If Foley and the organization
did a favor for a family, that family voted as Foley and
the organization wished it to vote. It did not forget to
go to the polls. It had no chance to forget. Foley and
his lieutenants saw that it did not forget, although favors
were done by Foley without asking any questions of the
recipient about his politics. Foley relied on human nature

[45]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

to get the political returns of gratitude. In these ways it
was not different from other districts, except in the de-
gree of efficiency with which this system was carried out.
Even during the Harding landslide, when New York
City, for one of the few times in modern history, went
Republican for the presidency, Foley's district gave James
M. Cox the usual huge Democratic plurality.

There was not any other kind of politics that meant
anything to an ordinary family struggling for existence.
The principles put forth by reformers, from time to
time, meant nothing to the inhabitants except obstacles to
their obtaining jobs. Warmth of life, mutual help be-
tween man and man, were tied up with the active, sym-
pathetic organization. The poor were convinced that
Tammany Hall was kind to them. Henry Ward Beecher
used to say that he did not wish the devil to have the
monopoly of all the good tunes in the world. That real
expert in East Side affairs, and sympathetic leader of the
people, Jacob Riis, said: "The saloon has had the mo-
nopoly up to date of all the cheer in the tenements."
There were saloons in the Second Assembly District and
Al Smith was also in their back rooms sitting around a
table with his neighbors talking of many things about
the neighborhood, including, of course, the most popular
topic of the day — politics.

In the Wells Fargo book we find the following news-
paper quotation: "Henry Campbell, the President of the
Seymour Club, which is the anti-Tammany club of the

[46]

THE SCHOOL OF THE TIGER

S. A. D., owns about twenty-five tenement houses in the
Seventh Ward. He is fond of cycling." Campbell was
now backing his young friend and fellow-cyclist for a
better job. On the same page in the Wells Fargo book is
the following, also from a newspaper: "Friends of Al-
fred Emanuel Smith, Secretary of the Seymour Club of
the Second Assembly District, are quietly nursing his-
boom for the nomination for the Assembly."

Also this: "Alfred Emanuel Smith, the orator of the
Seymour Club of the Second Assembly District, was a
hard worker during the last two campaigns. He is ambi-
tious to become a member of the legislature and is look-
ing for the nomination in his district. He has announced
that he will take the stump for Timothy J. Campbell
next year, if he does not engage in a personal canvass."

He actually went to the Assembly in 1903. That was
just at the time when William Travers Jerome, district
attorney of New York, and the Committee of Fifteen, a
group of earnest citizens, determined to clean up the poi-
soned spots in the city, had accomplished certain dramatic
triumphs. The result affected Smith indirectly, as it af-
fected the nature of Tammany Hall.

New York was not changing suddenly, but it had long
been changing. A few years after the first anti-Tammany
outbreak against Boss Tweed and his ring, it was a boss
of Tammany Hall, "Honest" John Kelly, who helped to
bring to the front reform Democrats, who included Sam-
uel J. Tilden.

[47]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

A tribute to the power of political education was given
by Big Tim Sullivan himself, when he said that one
song, putting in popular form the prevailing swindling,
reduced the value of property on the Bowery by more
than twenty-five per cent. Big Tim saw something. He
saw that political standards and economic standards are
connected. This is one stanza from the song:

I went into an auction store,

I never saw any thieves before,

First he sold me a pair of socks,

Then, said he, "How much for the box?"

Some one said, "Two dollars"; I said, "Three!"

He emptied the box and gave it to me.

"I sold you the box, not the socks," said he.

I'll never go there any more.

The man who was Boss of Tammany Hall during the
most important part of Smith's career, Charles Francis
Murphy, was a good friend of Smith's, and of the newer
element in the organization. He was silent, but he
thought. Although he had been a saloon-keeper, he had
qualities which made it easier for the better element in
Tammany to progress. In dealing with his district lead-
ers, he sought to give promotion, when possible, to the
more modern workers. In the career of Alfred Smith it
meant much that Murphy's mind had seen the writing
on the wall. More and more the boss came to admire and
love the Governor, and his deft touch was felt in some

[48]

THE SCHOOL OF THE TIGER

of Smith's most difficult experiences with his political
enemies.

By the time that Smith was selected to go to Albany,
he had begun to study national politics. The vivid cam-
paign of 1896 took place six years before Smith entered
the legislature. Bryan had challenged the money power
of the East and embodied his challenge in a rhetorical
attack on the gold currency standard. The business forces
of the East, led by Mark Hanna, had responded confi-
dently, and a bolting democratic ticket, headed by Palmer
and Buckner, had been put up as an indirect aid for Mc-
Kinley and the Republican ticket. The big opening gun
of the campaign on the conservative side was fired by a
Democrat, Tammany's foremost orator, Bourke Cockran.
In the Wells Fargo book we find the famous "Cross of
Gold" speech of Bryan, the speech of Cockran, and
various other discussions of the currency issue. We also
find beginning to make their appearance in that collec-
tion newspaper editorials of the modern popular type,
of the sort in which important issues are taken up but are
simplified and driven in with a technique suited to a large
and untrained public.

Smith at that time, while inevitably far from the mas-
ter of profound and truthful analysis that he became later,
was forging his weapons.

When he reached Albany he did not like the situation.
Many of the activities that had filled his life were behind
him. There did not seem to be anything to do. He found

[49]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

himself out of sympathy with the methods of amusement
which prevailed among the commonplace assemblymen.
There was a vice quarter of the town, known as the "gut,"
which many of them found exhilarating, but not Smith.
He was happy in his family, his morals were simple and
firm. He was not fond of poker. He took no interest in
prize-fighting, popular among minor politicians. Al-
though always liked by sporting men, he has never been
much of a sport himself. He was sociable, but what he
liked in human intercourse was conversation and song.
He liked to ask questions.- If somebody blurted out
an opinion, he would answer, "Did you say so and
so?" until he found out exactly what the man did mean.
He was like a vastly simpler Socrates. In the back of his
head he was a little sad that it was his function to register
the decisions of an organization that did not think. At the
end of his first term he was not sure that he cared to go
back. He and Foley had breakfast together one day with
Mayor McClellan. With the Mayor on his side, Smith
could have had a place in the city government. However,
both McClellan and Foley thought he ought to give
Albany a longer trial. At the end of the breakfast Smith
consented to go back for another term.

One of the three men who sat at that breakfast saw
the situation differently from Smith. Tom Foley knew
Smith. He knew his standards. Looking back to this de-
cision, Foley once said:

"Al. went up to Albany on his first trip to the Assembly

[50]

THE SCHOOL OF THE TIGER

just as cocksure of himself as he has ever been in his life.
He didn't cut much of a figure in the first two or three
terms, but there was a reason for that, and if he won't
tell, I will.

"He was too smart to be a morning-glory. The secret
of his success is that he never mingles in anything that he
doesn't know all about. He played a minor part in the
Assembly until he was thoroughly familiar with the rules
and procedure and with state legislation and finance in
general. When he was sure of his ground he walked out,
and it wasn't very long before he was the dominating
figure in a legislative body hostile to him and to his politi-
cal organization."

When Smith went to the Assembly in 1903, Foley gave
him a piece of advice that was not needed, but that was
the expression of a code: "If you make a promise, keep it 5
and if you tell anything, tell the truth."

And later when he was elected Governor this political
godfather said to his gifted godchild, "Go on, do your
best. I have given everybody orders to lay off and give
you a chance to do your duty." Those who realize the
pressure of office- and favor-seekers upon men in high
public places appreciate what Tom Foley did to help
Smith give the best that was in him for the State.

If one seeks to understand the school of the Tiger,
rather than to pass an ethical judgment upon it, he could
scarcely do better than to read what Governor Smith said
about his old chief when Tom Foley died.

[51]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

The younger man sat at his desk in the Capitol. The
newspaper men were gathered around him. He had pre-
pared a typewritten and rather commonplace tribute to his
dead friend, but as the picture of the older man rose
before his mind, the prepared statement was forgotten.
A reporter on the World speaks of the phrases as having
been "disconnected, with an unaccustomed hesitation in
the voice and an absence of those harsh tones that have
dominated many a political fight." He said:

"Shocked — at his age, of course. Now that it's all over,
I can remember the way Dr. Nicoll said, 'He's in good
physical condition for his age, but we're going to worry.'
He said it two or three times. 'But we're going to worry*
— I suppose he couldn't stand it.

"He didn't want to go to the hospital — he had ter-
ribly strong will power — he was walking around the
house with pneumonia. I brought Dr. Nicoll down with
me (Dr. Matthias Nicoll, Jr., commissioner of the state
department of health) and he said, 'I'm all right ; I just
got a pain under my shoulder' — he didn't know what it
was -y he never was sick in his life.

"That was Tuesday afternoon at his house.

"Charley Brady persuaded him to get into a chair, and
they carried him downstairs and brought him away to the
Rockefeller Institute.

"He was very submissive in the end, but at the start he
wouldn't let any one go near him at all.

"I heard he was dead at half past one in the morning.

[52]

THE SCHOOL OF THE TIGER

As soon as the knock came on my door I knew what it was.

"He was seventy-four years old. He was about twenty-
two years of age when he came to New York. He was a
blacksmith. He used to swing the hammer. He came to
New York and started a saloon on the corner of Oliver
and Water Streets in 1872, and he remained over there
all his lifetime.

"He's never been away from there ever since. I guess
he knew everybody in the Fourth Ward.

"He was in politics practically all the time, but he was
never very desirous of being in the front until after the
election of Van Wyck. The force of circumstances drove
him into the leadership fight in 1901.

"Nobody had the grip on the people that Foley had.

"Yes, he had two homes. One uptown on Thirty-
fourth Street. When Mrs. Foley was away he would stay
in Oliver Street, or when he was late at the club. He had
the whole floor at No. 15 Oliver Street, and he will be
waked there.

"He will be buried from the old church, St. James's.
He was married there and his wife was christened there.
He always came down to church in St. James's. I guess
he's never been in any other church in New York except
to go to a funeral.

"I knew him for forty years because I was born one
block away from where he kept his saloon. I have known
him all that time. I was intimately connected with him in
politics since 1895. That's thirty years.

[53]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

"He was responsible for my first nomination. He spoke
to a man by the name of Henry Campbell, a big prop-
erty owner and groceryman on Vesey Street. He called
him into the back room of the cafe on Centre Street and
said, 'You'd better dig up Al and ready him up. It looks
as if this convention wants to nominate him.' That was
for the Assembly in 1903."

The type of person who studies city politics in America
with a critical eye needs no emphasis on its evils. Ethics,
however, without understanding, are not a reflection of
life. The machine politician of whom Al Smith was
thinking as he spoke these broken sentences was a warm
being, the incarnation of a system that is passing, but a
being throbbing with generosity and relentless in the ex-
ecution of his duty, as it was given to him to understand
his duty.

As Tom Foley was carried away from his old red
brick house, No. 15 Oliver Street, 10,000 people stood
in the streets. Forty of New York's nationalities were
there. Justices of the Supreme Court were among them,
district attorneys, big business men, gamblers, gangsters.
When the Governor of New York amid perfect silence
walked into that house, there were present a judge and a
man whom that judge had sentenced to prison. Sixty-
five days after Tom Foley was buried, the Governor of
New York was among those who saw Mrs. Tom Foley
lowered into her grave.

[54]

Chapter III

AWAKENING

As we approach a transition in Alfred Smith's life, from
the period when he was merely a member of the or-
ganization to the period when he began to be a force
for progress, we may well grant truth to more than one
explanation of what brought that change about. There is
undoubtedly much in the . interpretation we have quoted
from Tom Foley, that Smith will not admit that he un-
derstands anything about a subject until the time comes
when he understands everything. Probably more ideas
were starting in his head, even in that disappointing first
term in the Assembly, than he realized. There is a story,
in which the form varies slightly in different versions,
that even on his first night in Albany when he and an-
other new assemblyman, Tom Cawlin, of the Battery,
the district adjoining his, were together, Smith suggested
they might put in the time by looking over some of the
bills of the last session. Most of those bills were of the
kind that referred back to some other bill, not explained,
and then provided to amend that bill with some slight
change of language. After they had looked over a bundle
of such bills Smith is quoted by his friend as having ob-
served: "I can tell a haddock from a hake by the look in

[55]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

its eye, but in two hundred years I could not tell these
things from a bale of hay." The Governor admits that he
may have made this remark. If he did, he seriously un-
derestimated the length of time it would require to give
him an appetite for legislation and a mastery of it.

The Governor himself dates the beginning of gen-
uine, active interest in his second term, in 1905, when he
was put by Speaker Wadsworth on the Committee on In-
surance. He says it did not start his mind going on legis-
lation in general, but he admits he did throw himself in-
tensely into this one first assignment that had any sub-
stance in it. He made a thorough study of the bills that
resulted from the famous investigation of insurance evils
conducted by Charles E. Hughes. Another event that
stimulated him about the same time was a change in the
rules, for which Smith gives full credit to Speaker Wads-
worth, who has just completed two terms as United
States Senator. Previously it had been the custom, when
a motion was made from the floor, to make it in such
form that it was almost impossible for those hearing the
motion to have a genuine understanding of what the pur-
pose of the motion actually was. Under Wadsworth's
leadership, it now became necessary for any one making
a motion to include in it enough to enable an attentive
listener to understand its purport.

In 1 907 Smith was put on the committee to revise the
charter of the City of New York. This assignment gave
him some nourishment also, and he has mentioned it as

[56]

AWAKENING

one of the early developments that reconciled him to stay-
ing on in the legislature. If there was a chance to learn
and work he was willing to remain. The problem with him
was not to avoid work, as with so many, but to find
enough to keep his powers in exercise. The work of
charter-revision at least enabled him to study the govern-
ment of the city and its relation to the government of the
State.

The beginning of that steady development which
ended in the mastery Smith ultimately attained, he likes
to place in 1911, at the beginning of his work on the
Ways and Means Committee. The occupation of the
Ways and Means Committee is to appropriate money to
particular purposes. It is a committee on which assembly-
men from the big cities do not like to serve. The reason
they do not like to serve on it is that practically all of its
work consists in making appropriations for the rural dis-
tricts. The rural member likes to be on it because he can
strengthen himself with his constituents by securing ap-
propriations for his locality. For a city member, there is
no way of gaining personal advantage. In filling up this
committee, the Republican party has no difficulty, since
its membership comes largely from the country districts.
Most of the Democrats in the Assembly, however, come
from the big cities, and therefore it is almost impossible
to find any of them who will take an interest. For this
reason, Smith, when he actually became interested in the
work, was practically the only Democrat who was. He

[57]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

threw himself into it headlong. It gave him a task com-
pletely suited to his mind and character. He often says
in explaining his career that the greatest thing Provi-
dence did for him politically was to give him an unfail-
ing memory. It was no chore for him to make himself
familiar with the public business, in detail, of every lo-
cality in the great state. Not only did he never forget
anything, but he immediately and easily translated gen-
eral phraseology into exact pictures and specific homely
language. There was never any use in telling him that a
certain department needed eight clerks, "Grade A." That
to him was merely so many words. Smith had to know who
these men were; what they did 5 why they were needed.
If a building was to be built or a highway improved, the
project would not receive the acquiescence of Smith until
he knew exactly what it included, and how much it ought
to cost. He is supposed to be the first person who ever
refused to vote for an appropriation bill without reading
and understanding every single word in it.

Smith soon realized that only a few questions that
come before the Assembly are properly political. The
remainder are business questions, that come down to the
spending of money. Should money be spent by the state
for a certain purpose? If so, how much ought the state to
appropriate for that purpose, and exactly how should the
purpose be carried out?

This idea of the distinction between political questions,
few in number, and the multitude of questions properly

AWAKENING

non-partisan in their nature, took a strong hold on Smith's
imagination. He is a gay man, but it did sometimes sadden
him that nothing seemed to interest his fellow-members
except politics. He became so genuinely absorbed in the
business side of legislation that it helped him make friends
of assemblymen from every part of the state. It did not
matter much whether these assemblymen were Republi-
cans or Democrats. They found in Smith a man who cared
about the needs of their districts, and had a matchless
ability for understanding those needs. William Allen
White has made the penetrating remark that Smith kept
his old friends with his heart, and made new friends with
his head.

This work on the Appropriations Committee was not
only the road to broader relations with members of the
Legislature, but also it made him interested in the work
of other committees. Most assemblymen from New York
City spend week-ends at home, and early in the session,
as much of the rest of the week as they safely can.

He was at Albany almost every week, reading bills and
reports, often attending meetings of committees outside '
his own. The ordinary legislator has some other business
into which in one way or another he fits his position as
assemblyman. Smith sought no such combination, as he
had learned to conceive of the work as that of a man who
is helping to spend millions of the state's money. Every
moment of his time and every bit of his thought were not
too much for the purpose.

[59]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

There evolved, as he reflected on the evil of slap-dash
and ignorant appropriation of money, one idea with which
his imagination became excited at the time, and is excited
still. "How can I make these men think?" Smith reflected.
"Under the present system they will give what intelli-
gence they have to politics, and nothing to the business of
the State. Suppose, however, we were able to get them up
here under conditions that would give them no politics to
think about. Why not divide the work of the Legislature?
Why not provide that every second session should deal
with nothing except appropriations unless, in some emer-
gency, the Governor should send in a special message
about something else? This would seem to make it a
necessity that half of the time at least the Legislature
should do some thinking about its main business."

The need of some such measure to force more serious
thinking about the business of the State was summed up
in private conversation: "I am convinced that even to this
day there are not more than ten men who could answer
such questions as, *How much money is appropriated for
the building, maintenance and repair of state highways?5
There are not ten men who could give you an intelligent
reason for the increase in the amounts appropriated.
When I was working on this committee, I would see the
majority perfectly willing to appropriate $35,000,000 on
quick roll-call without knowing what it was all about."

Much later, talking with his cabinet, on February 9,
ft 9 2 7, the Governor covered this same idea: "The Legis-

AWAKENING

lature should meet for the purpose of general law-making
only once in every two years. In the off year the activity
of the Legislature ought to be confined entirely to the
preparation of the appropriation bills and making pro-
vision for the support of government."

Smith's early development, as we know, came through
personal contact with men, women, and children. His
sympathetic nature lived with them through their needy
lives. He saturated himself with human beings, but he did
not acquire much of what is commonly called education.
There was a gold medal in his school for general scholar-
ship, but he did not earn it, as he earned the silver medal
for speaking. As he likes to say, the Executive Mansion at
Albany is hung with the diplomas of his children, but
there is no diploma for him. As he passed out of school
into the support of himself and those dependent on him,
he felt this lack of education. He felt it in the fish mar-
ket, and again in Brooklyn, when he saw the difference
between the work of a receiving clerk who had a certain
amount of education, and the work of a receiving clerk
» who was a mere laborer. But although he felt this lack
of education, he did not go out to remedy it, as some
strong men have done, by their own reading. It is some-
times said that his favorite books are Job and the Gospel
according to St. Luke. Such statements, however, will not
bear much emphasis. He craved education, but he was so
built that he had to get it in his own way. He had always
read newspapers, for the current political facts and com-

[61]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

ments. At the same time, he had never become a hard and
thorough reader until his task led him to documents, bills,
and figures. This truth is perhaps connected with a sin-
gular concreteness of his mind. Never was a brain more
specific. He does not start from an interest in general prin-
ciples and proceed to an interest in detail. He starts with
the problem in front of him, and the mastery of that
special concrete problem is what leads him to his general
principles.

With the Ways and Means Committee, as a force
awakening Smith's mind and expanding his horizon,
must be placed his work on the Factory Commission. The
State Factory Investigating Commission was the result of
a terrible fire, in which 145 girls, working in a shirt-waist
factory, were burned to death, or killed by jumping to
the sidewalk. A tragedy like this was needed to call the
attention of the citizens to the fact that, while they had
some factory laws, even the laws which they did have
were not enforced.

By an act of the Legislature, dated June 30, 1911, the
following Commission was appointed:

Senator Robert F. Wagner ) By the President
Senator Charles M. Hamilton ( of the Senate

Assemblyman Alfred E. Smith )

/By the Speaker

Assemblyman Edward D. Jackson >

( of the Assembly

Assemblyman Cyrus W. Phillips )

[62]

AWAKENING

Mr. Simon Brentano "N

Mr. Robert E. Dowling I

TV/T o i r* > By the Governor

Mr. Samuel Gompers /

Miss Mary E. Dreier J

The Commission was required to report to the Legis-
lature on or before the fifteenth da/ of February, 1912.
This date was extended for a year.

The Commission organized on August 17, 19 n, by
electing Robert F. Wagner chairman 5 Alfred E. Smith
vice-chairman $ and by selecting Frank A. Tierney as sec-
retary. It appointed as chief counsel Abram I. Elkus, who
selected Bernard L. Shientag as his assistant.

It was charged with the duty of inquiring into the fol-
lowing matters:

1. Hazard to life because of fire; covering fire pre-
vention, arrangement of machinery, fire drills, inadequate
fire escapes and exits, number of persons employed in fac-
tories and lofts.

2. Danger to life and health because of unsanitary
conditions; ventilation, lighting and heating arrangement,
hours of labor.

3. Occupational diseases such as industrial consump-
tion, lead poisoning, and bone disease.

4. Adequate inspection.

5. Manufacturing in tenement houses.

6. Laws and ordinances already existing, and the ex~

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

tent to which they were enforced. It was to recommend
what new legislation might be needed.

The Consumers' League, the Committee on Safety, the
New York Child Labor Committee, and many economists
and psychologists were united in this work for a single
purpose. As a result of their efforts, the state of New
York wrote on its statute books what is generally held to
be the most enlightened labor code in the country.

Smith was ready to be impressed by the kind of facts
turned up by this Commission. He was already the favor-
ite representative of the Federation of Labor in such
matters. He was a man of the people and his natural sym-
pathies were with those who stood most directly to benefit
by factory legislation. He belonged to the party which
drew its strength from the industrial masses in the city,
as contrasted with the Republican party, which repre-
sented big business in the cities and the rural voters. Any
legislation, therefore, that affected the industrial masses
would be received by Smith sympathetically, on human
grounds, and also on the grounds of his own party's nat-
ural obligations. The Commission sought its information
all over the state, and Smith, according to his habit, saw
everything and forgot nothing. It gave him much new
material for his humane tendencies.

Moreover, this experience gave him a new set of friends
whom he has never lost. It is often supposed that his
greatest popularity is among the masses. This conclusion
is much to be questioned. It is probable that when it comes

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to an election there is today no group of people in the
state whose votes go to him with as close an approach to
unanimity as the vote of the social workers. The ac-
quaintance with them, which began early in his career but
was enlarged during the work of the Factory Commis-
sion, has resulted in a permanent set of contacts which has
given him a body of expert help which any progressive
legislator and executive needs. Smith was quick to real-
ize their value. For years he had been oppressed by the
absence of general ideas and general purposes in both
political organizations. Those general ideas and general
purposes were now made available to him and he has
never for one moment ceased to use them.

One who reads the three volumes of this Commis-
sion's report, if he is familiar with the speeches of Smith,
will realize how many of the ideas expressed became his
own. He has repeated, again and again, the leading princi-
ples there laid down. An example is this: "Health is the
principal asset of the working man and the working
woman. The State is bound to do everything in its power
to preserve the health of the workers, who contribute so
materially to its economic wealth and its industrial pros-
perity. . . . Indifference to these matters reflects grossly
upon present day civilization, and it is regrettable that
our state and national legislation on the subject of indus-
trial hygiene compares so unfavorably with that of other
countries."

Of the importance of the work the Commission said:

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"New York is the first state in the Union to authorize a
general investigation of the conditions in manufacturing
establishments within its borders. Several other states
have appointed commissions which were limited in the
scope of their investigations, such as the Illinois Com-
mission on the subject of occupational diseases, the Mas-
sachusetts Commission on factory inspection, and the
various commissions on accident prevention and employ-
ers' liability. It remained for the state of New York to
lead the way with an investigation of factory conditions
general in its scope and character."

The Commission points out that factory workers are in
special need of protection and supervision. Among them
disease finds its easiest victims, as the death rate shows.
Often indeed has Smith pressed home this thought.

The long, hard program thus presented to the enthu-
siastic member of the Commission who most concerns us
is of scarcely less importance in our history of a growing
mind than is the vista opened up to him by the Committee
on Ways and Means. It was a different picture, but the
two supplemented each other. The one gave the active-
minded but undeveloped young politician a chance to mas-
ter the technique of legislation as it should be. The other
told him about the purposes for which the work of legis-
lation could be used. It was not a beginning for him, but
it was an enlargement, and it was the best possible set of
new contacts.

Smith was now to study in several industrial centers.

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AWAKENING

He visited all kinds of factories with members of the
Commission and their force of inspectors. He was in fac-
tories where he knew that little children, who had been
at work there a few minutes before, were huddled into an
elevator and held there between floors until the Commis-
sion's visit was over. He saw whole families, mothers with
their children, little boys and girls, working all the day-
light hours and seven days a week in the canneries and
the fields.

The Commission, in its first year, held fourteen public
hearings in the city of New York, and eight in the cities
of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, Schenectady, and
Troy. Two hundred and twenty-two witnesses testified,
and 3,489 pages of testimony were taken.

Meantime a staff of from eight to ten inspectors, en-
gaged in field work, for a period of five weeks, covered
twenty industries. Among those investigated were print-
ing, tobacco, chemicals, bread, candy, ice-cream, pickles,
sugar, drugs, mineral water, meat packing, artificial flow-
ers, paper boxes, clothing, corks, rags, textiles, human
hair, cleaning and dyeing.

Smith is right when he emphasizes what his faultless
memory means in complicated experiences such as this.
Perhaps, when human suffering is concerned, as here, his
habit of translating everything into terms of life counted
as much.

It became his special province to see that the resulting
legislation was passed by the Legislature. The thorough-

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ness with which he met this duty was destined to be in
large part the basis of his eminence. Of the situation the
report said: "It is of great importance to state clearly that
the bills proposed by the Commission have been pre-
sented in such form as to justify no modification before
enactment into law. We declare distinctly that we have
asked for no more remedial legislation than is impera-
tively demanded by the present conditions in the factories
of the state.

"The most important recommendation that the Com-
mission presents deals with the reorganization of the De-
partment of Labor. Furthermore, the most important fea-
ture of this reorganization is the proposed creation of the
Industrial Board."

To make clear to business men that legislation to pre-
serve and promote human welfare is desirable has devel-
oped into a major purpose of Smith's life. It is a purpose
for which by this time he was completely fitted.

The importance of this factory investigation is regis-
tered in a report by the New York State Federation of
Labor, which says: "Your legislative committee desires to
call the attention of the delegates to the great number
of bills cared for at the last session, and the unprece-
dented number of labor laws placed on the statute books
of this State. No Legislature in the history of the State
Federation surpassed the session of 1913 in the passage
of so many or so important remedial measures for wage-
earners of New York State, and we doubt if any state in

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the Union can now compare with our Empire State in
its present code of labor laws. The result this year is due
to the State Factory Investigating Commission, of which
Senator Wagner is chairman and Speaker Smith vice-
chairman."

An important part of Smith's life is the devotion and
completeness with which he understood the program, and
the shrewdness and driving energy with which he carried
it out. He acted as majority leader in the House in 1911,
as minority leader in 1912, as speaker in 1913, and as
minority leader again in 1914 and 1915.

The leadership of the majority in 1911 gave him his
legislative opportunity, for with it came automatically his
appointment by the Speaker as chairman of the Ways
and Means Committee. The majority leader, as floor
leader, is the first to be recognized by the Speaker on
every bill before the House on which he chooses to speak.
He is expected to be able to debate its merits or faults
and must therefore know its contents. This responsibility
naturally led Smith to study carefully the legislation the
Assembly considered.

In whatever position he happened to be, he made him-
self felt not only for knowledge and tact, but also for
positiveness and will. Whether it was in a party caucus or
on the floor of the Assembly, his firm voice and emphasis
marked a determination to have business carried out. He
had then, and to a certain extent still has, a trick of bring-
ing out the last word in a sentence like the crack of a whip.

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His voice, strong by nature and trained indoors and out
from childhood in a rough and tumble school, is power-
ful, elastic, and often harsh. His fellows and associates
had no passion for the program. Many of them were
likely to be absent on important occasions. The leader had
frequent occasions to read to them the riot act or, to use
another American expression, to put the fear of God into
their hearts. He was a pleasant boss, but not an easy one.
He knew his people, and his rough determination gave
no offense. As he sat in his chair, banging his gavel, or
shouting at some speaker to hurry along, he made on
many observers the impression of being much taller than
his five feet seven inches. His face might be in repose
or it might be lighted with expression, but it always
showed that the mind behind it was active and intent
upon its duties. The mild blue eyes were easily aroused,
and when they did begin to shine, they were like a fire
fed both by intense thought and by emotion.

In the Knickerbocker Press of a January issue in 1913
appeared an article called " Alfred E. Smith, the Power
Who Rules over the State Assembly." The author says:
"Speaker Smith is running the Assembly and nobody else.
He is conducting it on a business basis. There is no dilly-
dallying. Nobody has to put their hands to their ears to
hear what he is saying. His powerful voice is at times
almost sinister."

A letter to the New York Times dated March 29, 1913,
was called "Our Honorable Legislators." It is inac-

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AWAKENING

curate about some of Smith's history, but it successfully
conveys an impression of his behavior. The writer says:
"Speaker Smith, who I am told was once a barker at
Coney Island and a vaudeville performer, yells with
hoarse, raucous voice from the Speaker's table as if he
were at Coney, and pounds his gavel as if he was pound-
ing on one of those sledge-hammer affairs at Coney which
are supposed to show how strong you are. He ate luncheon
during the session and at times talked with food in his
mouth. There is a complete lack of dignity. At times bills
on the calendar are rushed through at the rate of eight a
minute by a process of antiphonal mumbling by the clerk
and Bull-of-Bashan-like roars from the throne behind,
'Read the last section,' 'Call the roll,' 'The bill is passed.'
The roll is not called — just a name or two and the clerk
says so many ayes and noes none. I timed the work and
found that when running full speed the bills were en-
acted at the rate of eight a minute."

Smith's wit differs from that of Lincoln much as the
whole nature of the lively Irish city boy differs from that
of the brooding pioneer from the woods of Kentucky and
Illinois. It was with one sentence that he beat the attempt
of certain canning interests to weaken one of the most im-
portant recommendations of the Factory Commission.
That recommendation was in favor of one day's rest in
seven. Those canning interests which were endeavoring to
prove that they should be exempted from this provision
had been able to induce a number of clergymen and other

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respectable citizens to go to Albany and plead for the ex-
emption. Smith rose in his place and made the following
observation: "If these distinguished champions of women
and children were to rewrite the divine law I have no
doubt they would change it to read, 'Remember the Sab-
bath day to keep it holy — except in the canneries.' "

When the Democratic Highway Commissioner turned
in his resignation to Governor Whitman, the minority
leader was indignant. There were reasons why he felt he
should have stuck to his post. It happened that later in
the same evening Smith heard that the Commissioner had
slipped on the pavement while leaving the Capitol and
had injured his arm. "He couldn't have hurt his back-
bone," said Smith. "What he has for a backbone is a
strip of spaghetti that has been soaked over night in hot
water."

The amount of work he undertook was expressed by
Smith himself when he said that it was almost physically
impossible for one man to attend to the duties of floor
leader and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.
Cutting down the estimates for appropriation in 1911 by
$11,000,000 represented for him, as leader and chair-
man, from eighteen to twenty hours a day for nearly
three months. This is to speak of a high spot, to be sure,
but the general volume of work he required of himself
during these fertile legislative years was such as could
have been borne by nobody without a first-class constitu-
tion and a bounding disposition. He was helped not only

AWAKENING

by his rugged physique and his long habits of labor, but
by his happy home and his Irish cheerfulness, which let
him step from the most intense application to a song and

a jig-

This lighter side of Smith's talent is something that it
is almost impossible to convey except by direct contact.
Those who hear him make a speech feel it strongly. It
reaches even those who listen to him on the radio, without
seeing his mobile face. Most of all, it carries away those
who come into social contact with him.

As time has passed, he has related his gift of narrative,
mimicry, burlesque, popular wit and humor more closely
to his important purposes. Those gifts have been a power
through his whole life. In Albany, as in New York, he
was building up a following that rested on his 'personality.
It is true that the most important story is the story of
growth in power to deal with large affairs, and the pub-
lic's appreciation of that power. It is also true, however,
that this rise has been made possible by his popularity.
The few who have memories of him as a boy put their
emphasis on his personal charm, his recitations, his acting,
his songs in the engine house, his funny stories, his imita-
tions of actors of his time. It was not for nothing that he
came in daily contact with the mixed masses of the cos-
mopolitan city. Thanks to his relentless memory, backed
by his keen observation, he has stories today that involve
long stretches of the kind of Neapolitan Italian heard on
the East Side. Naturally, in the character sketches and

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anecdotes involving his own nationality and its fascinating
brogue, he is at his best. He knows enough Yiddish to
picture Jewish characters with vividness. Sometimes he
undertakes the Englishman, but those stories are in-
ferior, because they derive not from actual experience, but
from what he has seen and remembered from his theater
days.

Smith loves to talk. Reminiscences of people who have
known him at Albany describe him with nine relatives eat-
ing in a restaurant, or with a group of the boys chatting
indefinitely at a resort known and frequented by politi-
cians. On such occasions Smith takes the lead with an ap-
peal that does not permit itself to be transferred to the
printed page. Mimicry cannot be transferred to print, nor
can liveliness of manner, nor that species of humor, loved
by Americans more than by other nations, that is closely
related to the humor of childhood, depending on high
animal spirits, good will, and rough effects. Again and
again, it happens that a person who has been captivated
by hearing Al Smith tell a long story, setting the charac-
ters in motion, full of exaggeration, full of action, will
undertake to repeat this story. The person who thus gets
it at second hand is almost certain to be disappointed.
The life of the anecdote has not been in some meaning
capable of concentration and transfer from person to per-
son, but the complicated details of life, usually farcical
and highly colored, have nevertheless built up a glowing
picture.

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Smith's list of achievements is what has attracted to him
the best intelligence of New York State. It is the charm
of his personality, however, that has given him the loyalty
of hundreds of politicians who care little or nothing for
the important things pending in the back of his head. For
the first two years of his residence in Albany he roomed
with Jack Yale, known as that member of the Legislature
who never talked, but who could get things done more
surely than any other Republican. Yale adored Smith, not
because Smith was a statesman, but just because he was
Al. He adored the lively, affectionate, breezy, gifted
friend and story-teller 5 and Yale was one of hundreds.

Lincoln had no friends. Outside of Lafayette, George
Washington had no friends, in the sense of close and
warm affection. These men dwelt apart. Not so Smith.
An experienced Republican politician said to one of the
authors of this book, "If everybody in New York State
had a personal acquaintance with Al Smith, there would be
no votes on the other side." There is nothing to put Smith
apart from the men in the street, except his brains and his
industry. In his enjoyment of life, he is one of the ma-
jority. The stories, limitless in number and easily re-
membered, the witticisms, quick and appropriate, even if
not always convincing, the popular songs ever ready to
spring to his lips, the dance steps ever ready to go with
the snatches of song — these things endear him to the
human beings around him and they also are part of his
working power. They protect him from strain. In that

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respect, they perform for him the same service that humor
performed for the lonely Lincoln.

There is no line of cleavage between the rush of popu-
lar and not too finished anecdote, imitation, and jocosity
that captivates ordinary people and those occasions when
his wit plays an important part in the victories of his
mind. For example, in one of his campaigns, he made a
speech in the Metropolitan Opera House. Every seat in
the vast building was occupied, and the aisles were
crowded, but the framework of this speech was a theatri-
cal entertainment. He introduced to the audience the Re-
publican leaders. They were not present in fact, but the
audience was easily led to picture them. They were on the
stage talking among themselves about their policies and
the Democratic policies. Every one of the thousand per-
sons in the audience was as amused as if he had been
sitting through a brilliantly successful comedy. At the
same time, everybody in the audience also understood the
serious policies that were there dissected, and almost every
one in the audience loves to tell about that occasion to this
day.

At another time Smith, as Governor, confronted a most
annoying situation. He had favored daylight saving. The
less intelligent farmers had opposed it. Particularly it was
opposed by the head of a grange who was presiding at a
dinner at which the Governor was to speak. This presiding
officer undertook to be funny. As he looked at his watch,
he seemed to think it was eleven o'clock in the evening, or

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AWAKENING

perhaps only nine o'clock, and ended up with the words,
spoken with impatience: "I don't know what time it is. I
present his Excellency, the Governor of New York."

Smith started soberly. He said leadership was neces-
sary in any walk of life; it was necessary in business j it
was necessary in politics; it was necessary in agriculture j
"and you can't make a leader out of a person who cannot
tell what time it is."

On another important occasion, this time in the Assem-
bly, he was arguing in favor of workmen's compensation.
(The farmer members opposed the bill because they were
afraid that farm labor was to be included among the
groups entitled to compensation for injuries.) As Smith
pointed out the benefits flowing from this policy to labor-
ing men and laboring women, near the conclusion of his
speech he was interrupted by a member from an agricul-
tural community who asked the question: "What good
is a Workmen's Compensation Law to a farm laborer out
of work?"

A dozen Assemblymen jumped up clamoring for recog-
nition so they might answer the question which appeared
to them so ridiculous.

The Minority Leader, however, insisted that he be
given the privilege of answering the question himself.
Turning to the questioner, he said: "As I was walking
down Park Row this morning, a friend of mine tapped me
on the shoulder and said, <A1, which would you rather be,
a cellar full of stepladders, a basketful of doorknobs or

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a piece of cracked ice?' and I replied I would rather be a
fish because you can always break a pane of plate glass
with a hammer."

The man who had asked the question seemed bewil-
dered and startled 5 he stuttered and sputtered, and finally
addressing the presiding officer said: "Mr. Speaker, I cer-
tainly do not get the point to the gentleman's answer,"
whereupon Smith in a loud voice said: "You don't get the
point to my answer. Well, let me say to you that there is
just as much point to my answer as there is to your ques-
tion. This bill is a meritorious measure, and its passage
should not be impeded by unnecessary delay, due to the
propounding of silly questions and foolish answers. I
move the previous question."

The reader will have to put a good deal of strain on
his own imagination to make up for his ill fortune in not
being personally acquainted with Smith. He has access
to an assortment of humorous stories but there can never
be any possibility of knowing from pen and ink the fun-
loving, warm-hearted lover of his fellow-beings. He un-
failingly gives a good time to his companions. He wins
their devotion because he loves them, helps them, leads
them, and amuses them. You see in this book a picture of
Al Smith at the age of four, carrying a pail, on his face an
expression of sweetness and thought. You see another
picture of the Governor of New York, and the outstand-
ing qualities are penetration and force. Many a picture is
stamped by vivacity, but not in a photograph, any more

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than in a written word, is it possible to catch the whole
of that elusive thing that we call charm or good fel-
lowship or lovability. The boys who sat around the table
at Albany telling stories or who went to the Minority
Leader, or the Majority Leader, as he might happen to
be, or later to the Governor, to talk about their desires and
troubles, will never find in any picture or any volume the
Al Smith whom they love. The great expert can be de-
scribed 5 the triumphs of the brain can be put down 5 but
those bonds of steel which rivet friendship and personal
loyalty are known only to the thousands who are the
Governor's personal friends.

At the wedding of his daughter, Emily, there were two
thousand guests. The Governor made no effort to show his
intimacy with each individual, as some awkward poli-
ticians often do. It was quickly and easily that he met each
human being, as he or she entered the room, greeted his
old friend, perhaps not seen for twenty years, as Tom or
Alice, and showed in some rapid word that the old life
was not forgotten.

In picturing the power, rapidly increasing, of Smith at
Albany, there is a third element to consider in addition to
his popularity and his brains. That is his knowledge of
machine politics, both Democratic and Republican, and his
ability and willingness to use that knowledge for the pur-
poses in which he believed. He was never a person to
strain at a gnat. If he could bring about the passage of an
important measure by granting to some politician a trivial

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favor, he granted it, even though he could not have any
respect for the politician's aims. Those were the days of
the Black Horse Cavalry. That graphic expression was
born to designate a group of politicians and lobbyists
both in the Senate and in the Assembly, who used their
positions to make money 3 and they did it with complete
and easy cynicism. It was the time when strike bills flour-
ished more than they do today. A strike bill is a measure
introduced, not in the hope of passage, but in the hope
that those pressing it will be well paid for withdrawing
it, or allowing it to die. Big Tim Sullivan was a power,
and many a Democratic politician was glad to dance to the
tune he played. John Raines, Republican leader of the
Senate, was a power, and in morals there was nothing to
choose between the parties, although the Republicans had
a larger number of men of some information and intel-
ligence, which is not saying a great deal. To Smith these
members of the Black Horse Cavalry were human beings.
His complete knowledge of their psychology and doings
has stood him in good service. In the four terms in the
Governor's chair, as well as in the years in the Legisla-
ture, there has been no success when a politician has gone
to him with a lot of false reasons for his position. Smith
has usually known his history and the motives which have
actuated him from the beginning. Thus "bunk" has been
one of his favorite words, and he has applied it freely
to politicians to their faces. Seldom, indeed, is a person
so equipped in manner and disposition to tell any one to

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his face the most damaging things and not make an enemy
of him. It is the same quality that has enabled Smith
to refuse an appointment to an applicant and yet send
him away still his friend. It is a mixture of sympathy,
kindliness, charm, and audacious honesty.

During the session of 1913, which, in Smith's own opin-
ion, did more to stir his mind than any other single year,
the outside world naturally paid a good deal more atten-
tion to the fact that he was the leader of the majority in
which Tammany Hall predominated than it paid to those
signs of growth which could not yet attract much atten-
tion at a distance. It was in this year that the Citizens'
Union, a non-partisan civic organization well known in the
city of New York, said, "Smith showed not the slightest
evidence of independence." The New York World spoke
of the so-called unbossed Democratic caucus as "Charles
F. Murphy at one end of a telephone wire and the Demo-
cratic leader at the other end." When the caucus is bossed,
"Mr. Murphy is in Albany in person and issues his in-
structions directly." The newspaper goes on: "Who can
fail to sympathize with A. E. Smith, majority leader of
the Assembly, in his denunciation of the insurgents for
the refusal to come into this body and fight the thing out
in the open?"

The colors painted by outside independents were true,
but they were not all the colors. Senate Leader Tom
Grady, an old type Tammany man, was turned down by
Murphy at the request of Governor Dix, and the man se-

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lected as Senate leader was Robert Wagner, now of the
United States Senate, one of the most serious and pro-
gressive members of the Democracy in New York State.
It was never any too easy for outsiders to know what
Murphy did favor. He always allowed appearances to in-
dicate a harmony between him and the majority of the dis-
trict leaders, but at the same time he was frequently help-
ing a small number of the more intelligent leaders to
win in the end. In the fight for direct primaries, for ex-
ample, it is worthy of note that Frisbee, speaker of the
Assembly, while the fate of the measure was in doubt,
threw himself into the breach and openly led the battle
for direct primaries. The newspapers of the day referred
to it as an anti-Murphy move. On the income tax, nothing
could be got out of Murphy more explicit than "I have
nothing to say. I am not a member of the Legislature."
The most graphic illustration of Smith's voting with Tam-
many men was when he cast a ballot against the policy of
former Governor Hughes on race tracks. Hughes had
undertaken to put them out of business and had stirred up
the whole state with a moral issue. Moral issues, in the
particular sense in which they were the most important
reliance of Governor Hughes, were not a natural part of
Alfred E. Smith. He had his own morality and courage-
ously followed it through his whole life. It was in a tra-
dition widely different from that of which Governor
Hughes was a distinguished part. Smith took no personal
interest in racing, but he voted for the Gill bill which pro-

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vided for the revival of race tracks, although that bill in
the end had only sixty-eight votes.

There has never been a time when Smith's morals did
not include fidelity to platform pledges. On the heated
question of whether United States senators should be
chosen at conventions, or at direct primaries, Smith said
in this session: "When the people last fall threw the gov-
ernment of the State into our hands, it was not merely to
elect John A. Dix governor 5 it was to bring about a re-
demption of our party pledges, among them the securing,
so far as lay within our power, of direct election of United
States senators. It is our duty to keep faith with the people
in one of the most important questions now before the
country."

Before the passage of the Workmen's Compensation
Law, injured workers were compelled to sue under what
was called an Employers' Liability Act. This Liability Act
had been drawn under a view of society that had come
down to us from the days when there were no factories.
If two men were working with a third man, and one of
them was injured, it was the law that the employer was
not responsible unless the accident had occurred without
the negligence of either of the other two employees. The
employee was responsible for being careful himself, and
also for seeing that the other man working constantly
under his observation was careful also. It took the law a
long time to realize that under modern conditions no sense

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

was left in this fellow-servant rule. After the construction
of machinery and factories it meant that hundreds of men
and women were working together, any one of whom
might be killed through a defect caused by another work-
man, whose post of labor might be hundreds of feet away.
One workman in such a factory knows nothing about the
carelessness of another workman. He has no power to
know about the safety of the machinery itself, or to cause
improvement if he does reach the conclusion that certain
changes should be made. If the rules of a simple and out-
grown civilization are to be applied to an enormous mod-
ern factory, it means that the laboring man and the
laboring woman are to suffer for errors which they have
no way of preventing. When a worker sued under the
Liability Act, he had to come into court and positively
prove that the accident did not result through his fault or
through the fault of a fellow worker. The world was full
of cripples who went to the poorhouse because they
lacked the money to pay skilled lawyers to meet the
skilled lawyers who protected employers and casualty
companies. The bill before the New York Legislature in
1911 shifted the burden. It was not a Workmen's Com-
pensation Law 5 it was an Employers' Liability Law. The
change was an upheaval. Albany was flooded with power-
ful special interests, their high-priced lawyers, their
lobbyists and their financial agents. The arguments put
forward by these representatives may seem fantastic now,
but at that time the people who seemed fantastic to the

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AWAKENING

average business man were those who sought to change the
responsibility and put it in accord with modern facts. The
lawyers for the factory owners, for the insurance com-
panies, and for the casualty companies, argued that if the
proposed legislation should be carried out, a workman
would intentionally lose an arm or leg in order to collect
payment. This was not a joke. It was put forward with
heartfelt conviction. Fortunately Smith had not only sat
on the commission and filled himself up with testimony,
but he had been a workman himself and had known work-
men all his life. He was equipped in every way to prevent
attempts to take the heart out of the bill by introducing
language that was in legal effect deadly, although it wore
the look of innocence. The bill passed and put New York
State on record as believing that wear and tear on the
human factor is a normal risk to the industry itself in
exactly the same way that the wear and tear on physical
machinery is a risk to the industry.

This particular fight was not ended when the first legis-
lation was passed. The interests on the other side were
powerful and determined. They used the courts and upset
the first bill. There has been a happy ending to the story,
but one of its stages is the passage of an amendment to
the law by the Republicans when they had the majority
in 1915. It permitted direct settlements between injured
workmen and insurance companies without recourse to
the machinery provided by the Workmen's Compensation
Act. The working of Smith's mind, his method of argu-

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ment, and his style may be seen in the following extract
from a speech against this proposal:

"And for whom are you of the majority doing all this?
Do the manufacturers want it? Does the workingman want
it? No!, Does the Legislature want it? No! And if it
hadn't been for old King Caucus you could never have
passed it. Does the Compensation Commission want it?
Then what other interested party is there? The Casualty
Company! That's who you are working for.

"This Thorn bill that provides that the employer must
make advance payments on awards to the injured work-
men caps the climax. It cinches the job for the casualty
companies. It gives them the final club they need. They
can now force the direct settlement. The agent can shake
the long green [paper money] before the widow or suf-
fering laborer and tell them if they sign away their rights
they can get so much but if they wait they can take their
chance on getting something months hence. That carries
us back to the good old days when we had no Compensa-
tion Law. Be honest and repeal the whole law and stop
faking.

"You and your Governor have ruined the Compensa-
tion Law. You have gone the limit for the casualty com-
panies. The people's case is lost."

It was not lost permanently. After many complica-
tions New York has a satisfactory Workmen's Compen-
sation Act today and the final chapter was written by
Smith himself as Governor in 1919, his first year in office.

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AWAKENING

He appointed a special Commissioner under the Moreland
Act who exposed the workings of the direct settlement
clause and through this report Smith secured its repeal.
That he is the one person to whom most credit for the pro-
tection of the Labor and Workmen's Compensation Acts
is due there is no one to deny. Organized labor has
affirmed it. It has been again and again affirmed by the
social workers who have devoted themselves to the cause.
The employers of labor themselves have by now many
times asserted that they would not wish the Workmen's
Compensation Law repealed.

The Factory Commission recommended that night
work for women be forbidden. It recommended that the
fifty-four-hour week for women be accepted as a present
basis, with a forty-eight-hour week as a desirable objec-
tive. It stated that women and men should not be allowed
to work in the same core room and added that the foundry
is not a proper place for women. The energy shown by
Smith in pushing legislation intended to protect women
from the harshness of modern industry won him many
friends among such organizations as the Consumers'
League and the type of women they represent.

He has never represented himself with more credit
than in his famous short speech on widows' pensions. For
a long time a small group of women in New York had
been working against the indiscriminate separation of fam-
ilies, when relief was needed, by taking the children to aa
institution, regardless of the character of the mother,

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Their idea was that if the mother was a fit person, she and
not some institution should be made the agent of the
State. These women brought the fight into the Legislature
in 1913. A commission was appointed to look into the sub-
ject. The result was the Hill-McCue bill of 1915. It was
fiercely fought. Smith's speech proved a dramatic
factor. It was delivered on March 24 at the third read-
ing. As he sat down there was a short pause, then an out-
burst of cheers. He said:

"Mr. Speaker, in the recent campaign and in the cam-
paign previous there was contained in the platforms of the
two great parties a plank which pledged the parties to the
conservation of our natural resources. As I see this bill and
as I view the policy on the part of the State in reference to
such matters, I am of the opinion that this bill should
read, 'An act to conserve the family life of the State.'

"What happens when death takes from the family the
provider? The widowed mother goes to the police court
or to the charity organization and her children are com-
mitted to an institution, and from the moment the judge
signs the commitment the people of the city of New York
are bound for their support. Let us see what effect that has
upon the State itself. The mother stands in the police
court. She witnesses the separation of herself and her chil-
dren. They are torn away from her and given over to the
custody of an institution, and nothing is left for her to
do but to go out into the world and make her own living.
What must be her feelings? What must be her idea of

[88]

FOUR TIN-TYPES FROM THE FAMILY ALBUM
T of Left: Mary Hartley, Alfred E. Smith, John J. Glynn, Harry
Mulvihill, Lillie Mulvihill, and Catherine Dunn. Tof Right: His sister
Mary (now Mrs. John J. Glynn) at fourteen years of age. Bottom Left:
Alfred E. Smith, Fred Herdleng, Mrs. Alfred E. Smith, and Miss Norah
McCarthy. * Bottom Right: Alfred E. Smith, about twenty-one; Mrs.
John Glynn, Mary Hartley, and Catherine Dunn; Foreground: Mrs.
Smith, Sr. (the Governor's mother), Uncle Peter Mulvihill, Jennie Mul-
vihill, and Harrv and LilliV Mnlvihill

AWAKENING

the State's policy when she sees these children separated
from her by due process of law, particularly when she
must remember that for every one of them she went down
into the valley of death that a new pair of eyes might
look out upon the world. What can be the feelings in the
hearts of the children themselves separated from their
mother by what they must learn in after years was due
process of law, when they must in after years learn to
know what was the State's policy with respect to their
unfortunate condition?

"That is the old system. That is the dark day we are
walking away from. That is the period that, by this policy,
we are attempting to forget.

"What new policy does this bill inaugurate? What new
system does this bill inaugurate? The State of New York,
under the provisions of this act, reaches out its strong arm
to that widow and her children and says to them, cWe
recognize in you a resource to the State and we propose
to take care of you, not as a matter of charity, but as a gov-
ernment and public duty.' What a different feeling that
must put into the hearts of the mother and the children!
What better citizens that policy must make! Why? Be-
cause it instills into that young heart a love, a reverence
and a devotion for the great State of New York and its
sovereign power.

"We are pledged to conserve the natural resources of
the State. Millions of dollars of the taxpayers' money, un-
told and uncounted millions, have been poured into that

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channel. We have been in a great hurry to legislate for the
interests. We have been in a great hurry to conserve that
which means to the State dollars and cents. We have been
slow to legislate along the direction that means thanksgiv-
ing to the poorest man recorded in history — He who was
born in the stable at Bethlehem."

In the session of 1913, as a result of the Roosevelt
campaign of the year before, there was in the Assembly
a Progressive bloc of four, and there was one senator.
The Progressives were keenly interested in suffrage for
women. At this time Smith was not particularly interested
in the principle. It cannot be said to be one of the topics
on which his imagination has been inflamed. Tom Foley,
his leader, was a bitter opponent of suffrage.

Nor was that other so-called liberal doctrine, the direct
primary, a matter into which he put much personal
warmth, although he has effectively represented the posi-
tion of his party. This was also a matter in which the Pro-
gressives were interested, and it was a leading tenet of
the Democratic governor, William Sulzer, the impeach-
ment proceedings against whom did much to occupy the
session and prevent harmonious action of the party. The
direct election of senators was on the same principle.

It is possible that Smith's limited enthusiasm for these
measures, although he supported them, was not entirely
unlike the position of Woodrow Wilson. Wilson for a
long time was opposed to direct primaries on the ground

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AWAKENING

that the basis of our Constitution was representative gov-
ernment rather than direct government. The idea on
which it rested was that a group of men selected for their
character and ability and brought together in a body for
consultation and action would represent a better conclu-
sion than could be reached by a lot of voters voting as in-
dividuals with no such possibility of consultation. George
U'Ren of Oregon was able to change Wilson's mind in
1912 by pointing out to him that this constitutional theory
of government no longer worked, and that legislatures,
instead of recording the results of deliberation, recorded
the wishes of bosses and of corporations. It is a subject
on which two theories, both of them sound, came into con-
flict. It is not capable of conclusive demonstration. It is
therefore not the kind of issue that should be expected to
make the strongest appeal to Smith's powers.

How far Smith had already grasped some of the prin-
ciples for which he is still fighting today, came out vividly
in the important work of deciding how much of that nat-
ural wealth, water power, was to remain under the con-
trol of the public, and how much of it was to be segregated
for the benefit of an enterprising few. As Smith, with easy
mastery, exposed the nature of the bill called the Mac-
hold-Sweet bill, introduced in 1915, which pretended to
be a reorganization of water power control for the pur-
pose of economy, we are made to realize that he was a
conservationist before that word became as popular as it
is today. We find a straightforward, shirt-sleeved attack,

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but at the same time an understanding of the essential is-
sues, and all the methods by which smooth politicians and
their wealthy backers protect their predatory interests.
The Democratic leader says:

"There is a very long history behind the fight to wrest
from the power men of the State the control of the
State's water power and its development for the benefit
of the people, and if I am able to read that which is be-
tween the lines plus that which you attempt to do by the
first print of your bill, I think I am able to discover the
artful hands of the power interests behind this bill. . . .

"So generous were you with the Niagara River that the
Falls themselves were threatened with destruction, and
the federal government took a hand in the regulation of
the Niagara River 5 and it was predicted at the time the
agitation was going on at the national capital that unless
you were brought up with a round turn, in ten more years
no water would be flowing over the precipice that makes
the American side of the Niagara Falls. . . .

"I said at the outset that I thought we were doing a
little more than saving a few dollars, a little more than
removing a few Democratic office holders. I think we are
again clearing the way, rolling up the gates, making shin-
ing the path for the water power men to come back and
grab these rights of the people.

"If we are not doing that, we are at least preventing
the State from developing it under state ownership and
control."

[92]

AWAKENING

Smith was successful. Amendments were offered to cor-
rect the evils he pointed out, and the result of these ex-
posures and amendments was that the bill did not pass.
Thus a few months before the Citizens' Union, the New
York newspapers, and the progressive and reform world
in general came over definitely to the support of Smith,
he was taking part in one of the most important aspects of
the present-day fight against privilege.

At this period it was Murphy's custom to meet with
the legislative leaders and other advisers on Friday eve-
nings at dinner at Delmonico's. Smith often attended
these conferences with Wagner, who was leader of the
Senate, and Aaron J. Levy, majority leader of the
Assembly.

Although Smith's regularity caused him to be severely
criticized by such organizations as the Citizens' Union, it
is clear that it was an element in his growing power. Mur-
phy was an index of the prevailing views in Tammany
Hall, but his wish was always to come as near to the views
of such advanced members as Smith and Wagner as he
could. Meantime, the fact that Smith remained in sym-
pathetic contact with the Chief and with the organization
was proving a constant education not only to Murphy but
to the party.

The attempt to initiate direct primaries was too much
for the temper of Big Tim Sullivan, state senator from
the Bowery district. He emitted the following speech:
"That's the way with you fellows who call yourselves

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reformers. You want us to stand for everything you want.
When it comes to giving us a hand you back up and begin
talking about being holy."

The liquor interests were friendly to Tammany Hall,
and Smith stood for legislation favorable to them which
Tammany sponsored. This, like other legislation of his
organization, Smith accepted, but as he watched the liquor
traffic he became conscious of its abuses and warned the
leaders of this industry that if they did not clean house,
the people would rise in their might to destroy them.

It is not easy for the average mind to draw for itself a
clear picture of the relation we have been discussing be-
tween Smith and large questions of statesmanship, on the
one hand, and the relation between him and the machine,
on the other. Both authors of this book were members of
the Committee of One Hundred and Seven which in 1913
nominated John Purroy Mitchel for mayor of New York
City, and one of them was chairman of that Committee.
Throughout the long sessions, these two were among the
few who fought against the use of the word anti-Tam-
many to represent the purposes of the movement. We felt
that the term was antiquated, conventional and inadequate.
We believed that no one on the Committee condemned
more definitely the practices which the whole nation had
become accustomed to associating with that word. We felt
that it was the business of our popular movement, how-
ever, to separate the thing from the label. We had our
way most of the time, but only by hard insistence. Ai-

[94]

AWAKENING

though the Committee was made up, in the main, of per-
sons unusually familiar with city politics, many of them
(Independents and Democrats as well as Republicans)
found it easier to use the label to express their thoughts
than to seek more adequate language.

We have no desire to soft-pedal the situation as it ex-
isted in Albany and New York City in these years, or to
leave out any illustration whatever of the part played by
Smith in the politics of his party. Our only task is eluci-
dation, and it is not an easy one, since the type of leader
that Smith has become has never been seen before. Not
since the rapid tides of immigration settled in the big
cities and political machines grew up in a shape to handle
these populations, has there been any man, except Smith,
who has been a product of the machine and who has re-
mained a member of it, and at the same time has become
a leader of the most progressive, practical thought of the
United States, and an expert in bringing such thought to
efficiency and success.

William Sulzer was not a heavyweight, but he shared
those progressive ideas which happened to be convention-
ally popular with the liberals at the time he was governor.
When a movement was made to reform the New York
Stock Exchange, Sulzer gave to it his backing in a special
message. At that time, Smith was a member of the Rules
Committee, which is always powerful and which had much
to do with the fate of this bill. Sulzer congratulated Smith
for his cooperation in getting the measure through. He

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was able to do it only by his personal contacts. Among
those on the Committee was Jack Yale, the silent reac-
tionary war horse of Putnam County, of whom, as we
have shown, Smith had made a special friend.

On the direct primary, Sulzer's opinion was differ-
ent. He looked upon the Blauvelt direct primary bill as a
sharri and he vetoed it. In his whole life, Smith has never
denied responsibility for his acts. In a dinner given later
on the East Side to Aaron J. Levy, leader of the Assembly
in 1913, he took the responsibility for the notorious
election law identified with Levy's name. He said, "I
framed the bill and passed it on to Mr. Levy, who was
a member of the Judiciary Committee."

Sulzer dug into the records of some of the leaders
whom he designated as Murphy's boys. He charged that
Wagner, Senator Frawley, and Smith, as well as less
progressive Democrats, had edited out of the appropria-
tions most of those asked for by his Committee of In-
quiry on economy and efficiency of the State government.

It was in 1913 that the Citizens' Union put into one
statement the opinion that, though Smith was executing
the orders of the machine, he "deserves credit for the
support of desirable home rule legislation." However,
the point is not a strong one, as Tammany supported
home rule legislation.

Senator Stillwell, of the Bronx, was fighting for a bill
to make that region an independent county. Murphy was
supposed to be against the bill, because of a fear that it

[96]

AWAKENING

would weaken the power of his organization, which in-
cluded the Boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx in its
organization. Smith helped block the measure.

When the power passed, in 1914, to the Republicans,
William Barnes was in full control. The man who was
chosen speaker of the Barnes machine was Ed Merritt. He
was of the same type as John Raines in the Senate, a
shrewd trader, who in seeking to put through measures
appealed to no abstract virtues or purposes, but to the more
immediate attractions of give and take. Like Jack Yale,
Merritt became an intimate friend of Smith, and when it
came to trading with them, his superior outlook did not
diminish his skill.

William J. Bryan, in the Baltimore Convention in 1912,
made a direct and eloquent attack on Murphy and the
system which allowed such a boss to sit at the head of a
state delegation. Bryan, at that time, was better able than
any other delegate to formulate the hostility felt by the
western and rural districts to the city machines. He looked
on them as inventions of the devil principally for two
reasons. One was their connection with the liquor trade
and the drink habit. The other was what he supposed to
be their proneness to be used as a tool of big business.
On the second point, he had no exhaustive information,
but he was right in believing that the New York delega-
tion could be counted on to find itself in support of a can-
didate favored by the financial powers, when at the same
time such a candidate was likely to make reasonable deals

[97]

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with the organization, rather than in support of such a
candidate as was finally chosen by the Convention, Wood-
row Wilson.

Some of the delegates to Baltimore urged Murphy to
allow Smith, Democratic leader of the Assembly, to make
a ten-minute speech, setting forth what had been done by
the Democrats the year before, when they controlled both
houses, toward passing progressive measures. To meet the
issue in this way did not appeal to Murphy. His strategy
was to remain silent. There were too many things he
could not say, even those things which were most to his
credit.

It is undoubtedly true that Smith never lost sight of the
fact that legislative success implied getting hold of
seventy-six votes in the Assembly. The acquisition of the
seventy-six votes could usually be accomplished only by
an intimate knowledge of the working of the machines of
both parties. Local selfishness had constantly to be ap-
pealed to. Whether it was lesser men, or Republicans like
Raines, Merritt, and Yale, or Democrats like Tim Sulli-
van and that silver-tongued orator, Tom Grady, abstract
principle was seldom heard of.

The stable of the Black Horse Cavalry was filled ex-
clusively with buccaneers. Some of them were lobby-
ists for public utility corporations. Others were lobbyists
for insurance companies. The long green, as paper money
was usually called, was supposed to pass with considerable
freedom. Blackmail was a steady interest. Smith, in the

[98] '

AWAKENING

long run, was to do more than any one else to reduce the
profit of this kind of politics, but he did not accomplish
it by passing on the other side of the street. He loved Ed
Merritt and Jack Yale, as he loved many of the "slick
operators" in his own party.

[99]

Chapter IV

PROVING HIS MASTERY

ALL through the hot Albany summer of 1915, from April
to September, sat a body of sweating statesmen. By the
end of the five months' grind, Alfred E. Smith was no
longer a man whose gifts were known to comparatively
few. He had won the confidence and admiration of lead-
ing Republicans, Democrats, and Independents through-
out the state. Every twenty years New York decides
whether to revise her constitution. In undertaking this
revision in 1915, the delegates to the Constitutional Con-
vention had to face rapid changes. What steps were now
appropriate to bring the State government abreast of the
times? Expenditure during the twenty years had been
increasing. The State debt had been increasing also. The
executive and administrative organization of the State gov-
ernment was, in the words of Elihu Root, "loose, con-
fused and ill-regulated." There were one hundred and
fifty or more separate agencies carrying on the business of
government, and responsible to nobody in particular. Leg-
islators were occupied chiefly in promoting private and
local bills for private and special interests, in so far as
those bills helped along their chances of reelection.
"This," as Mr. Root said, "made them cowards and de-

[100]

PROVING HIS MASTERY

moralized the whole body." Justice was slow. A mass of
technicalities had been built up to make it slower.

At the end of five sweltering months, eight hundred
amendments had been considered $ thirty-three amend-
ments had been proposed in the Convention. Twelve
passed unanimously; twelve by more than 10 to 15 two
by more than 7 to i ; two by more than 4 to 1 5 two by
more than 3 to i ; three by more than 2 to i. How should
these amendments be offered to the people of the State
for ratification? Senator Root was the leader of those who
held that, with a few exceptions, the amendments should
be offered as one inseparable body, on the ground that
they depended logically on one another. Smith led the
other side. He believed the plan would be defeated if the
new constitution were offered as a whole. Also, while he
himself approved of much that had been done, he felt
that if it were offered as a whole he would have to oppose
it on account of the refusal of the Convention to offer
equal representation and self-government to New York
City. He knew practical politics as many leading Repub-
licans did not. Barnes, head of the Republican state
machine, knew politics also, and favored separate voting.
The measures he wished to oppose included those which
were nearest to the sympathies of Smith. The more dis-
tinguished Republicans won, however. The constitution
was offered in the main as a single document, and in the
referendum it was defeated, by a vote of 400,423 for
adoption to 910,462 against it. A large majority of these

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measures have since been passed, and thus we have a dem-
onstration of the error of the Republican leaders in re-
fusing to allow the people to pass on the amendments
separately at the time.

Delancey Nicoll, a famous New York lawyer, said
afterward that Smith was "the only man at the Conven-
tion who knew what he was talking about." Charles E.
Hughes said, "Root planted the crop and Smith watered
it." Root himself stated that Smith understood the busi-
ness of the State better than any one else. Mr. Root also
referred to Smith as "the member of this Convention
whose attractive personality has impressed itself upon
every member of this Convention." George W. Wicker-
sham said he was the most useful man in the Convention.

The members who were perspiring and fanning them-
selves in Assembly Hall to carry out the revision included
the ablest of both parties. Four had figured in the Con-
vention of twenty years before. These elder statesmen
were treated with every consideration. Courtesy was illus-
trated in such a small matter as inviting them to make first
choice of seats on the floor. The distinguished four were:
Elihu Root, Louis Marshall, Delancey Nicoll, all of New
York City, and C. S. Mereness of Lowville, Lewis
County. When it came to choosing the chairman, Mr.
Root had 129 votes and Justice Morgan J. O'Brien had
32. The ovation lasted twenty minutes. It was a tribute
partly to Root's personal eminence, and partly to the man
who occupied a seat in the preceding Convention. There

[102]

PROVING HIS MASTERY

then followed a demonstration for the Democratic
leader, Alfred E. Smith, that almost equaled the one for
the veteran Republican.

The Assembly room is roughly circular in form. The
benches run down to a sort of well. The President of the
Convention, like the Speaker of the Assembly, sat on an
elevated platform. Behind and in front of him were
small galleries for spectators. The Democrats sat on one
side, the Republicans on the other, the leaders occupying
seats on the aisle toward the back.

The best-known Republicans belonged to what was
sometimes known as the Federal crowd, to distinguish it
from the regular politicians under the leadership of Wil-
liam Barnes. The floor leader, George W. Wickersham,
attorney-general in President Taft's cabinet, belonged to
this group, and also the progressive Republican leader
of New York City, Herbert Parsons, a man of educa-
tion and character, who believed in the value of a strong
machine as a weapon for good government and was doing
his best to make such a weapon of his party. It included
Henry L. Stimson, secretary of war under President
Roosevelt. Stimson did especially useful work on the
reform of the budget, giving a genuinely brilliant expo-
sition of the reasons for the change and thus helping to
clarify a question that at this date is about to go in a
referendum to the people. He was much in the confidence
of Root and acted as one of his lieutenants in carrying
out the ideas of the more advanced Republicans. The

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group also included Jacob G. Schurman, president of
Cornell, and later ambassador to Germany, who was ac-
tive for the literacy test. Seth Low, former mayor of
New York, had no Federal connections, but he belonged
with those men. His most assiduous work was in support-
ing the Republican position on home rule and reappor-
tionment. These leaders were, on the whole, progressive
liberals in touch with the modern spirit. Other Repub-
licans were United States Senator Wadsworth, George
Clinton, Edgar T. Brackett, Martin Saxe, Harvey T.
Hinman, and Judge Clearwater.

William Barnes was honest, vigorous in his convic-
tions, absolutely unsympathetic with anything departing
from the good old rule of allowing the strongest and
most cunning to nail down for themselves whatever ad-
vantages they could procure.

The Democrats were of two groups. Those who had
won most prestige were those who used their high quali-
ties for the defense of existing institutions. They were in-
telligent about details, but in essentials they were not lib-
erals. William Barnes gave it as his opinion that the Con-
vention had two classes of Democrats — "just plain Tam-
many men, led by Speaker Smith and Senator Wagner,
and conservatives like Morgan J. O'Brien, Delancey
Nicoll, and William F. Sheehan." The word conservative
in Barnes's vocabulary was the highest praise.

Three younger Democrats stood out as representing a
new force in the party and all had their political origin in

[104]

THOMAS F. FOLEY, GOVERNOR SMITH S POLITICAL
GODFATHER

PROVING HIS MASTERY

Tammany Hall. Robert F. Wagner at eight years old
passed from Germany to help his family seek its fortunes
in the New World. Unlike most of the Tammany leaders
he was a Protestant. He sold newspapers for a living and
attended to his simple affairs so well that he was able to
earn his way through college and law school. Like Smith,
he was progressive in his sympathies. Both cooperated to
make as good a constitution as possible, but at the same
time they acted as leaders of the opposition, considering
the interests of their party as against those of the Repub-
lican party. Senator James A. Foley, not to be confused
with Tom Foley, was later surrogate, and later also was
son-in-law of Charles F. Murphy. Then and later he was
one of the outstanding forces in raising the standards of
Tammany Hall.

In addition to the division into Republicans and Demo-
crats, progressives and conservatives, there was also a di-
vision between up-state interests and the interests of New
York City. This last division would occur now and then
on every measure, but it mostly had to do with the ques-
tion of reapportionment and home rule.

The Smith family realized the importance to them of
what was about to occur. Several of the five little Smiths
attended the Convention. They sent post-cards back to 25
Oliver Street. One of these was addressed to Cassar Smith,
their canine friend, the Great Dane whom the family
loved. More than one candid expression came from
younger members of the family, sitting in the gallery,

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showing a realization that their father was facing one of
the opportunities of kis life.

It did not take long to show the equipment with which
he was facing it. Smith at the year of the preceding Con-
vention had been about twenty years old. Now began a
five months' fire of fact and argument on dozens of ques-
tions, and not once in those five months was the compara-
tively young man from Oliver Street caught without mas-
tery of his topic.

The unequaled hold on facts possessed by Smith, along
with his intimate knowledge of practical politics, and his
already notable grasp of modern political principles, was
supplemented as always by the power of his personality.
His manner of addressing the Convention was informal.
While he struck the hardest blows in the Convention, he
struck them with an ease and pleasantness that made
people happy.

One of the newspapers of the time tells us that Smith
was speaking at one point under a five-minute rule, on a
matter in which he was intensely interested. Louis Mar-
shall was temporarily in the chair. His gavel fell. "The
gentleman's time has expired," he said. "But I am not
done, Mr. Chairman," said Smith, with a boyish laugh,
,and went ahead as if the matter was settled. A newspaper
observed, "He got away with it, too, to use the language
- of his constituents." The chairman forgot his ruling. The
Convention laughed and listened to the impetuous leader.

At another time when the Republicans were pressing a

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PROVING HIS. MASTERY

measure in which they asserted there was no politics,
Smith observed: "I say to Senator Brackett and his friends,
who talk about there being no politics in this, that I'll stop
talking right now, and that will hold good until the end
of the session, if he and his friends will join a society I
founded, and of which I am President, Secretary, Treas-
urer, and Board of Managers. It is called the 'Amalga-
mated Association for the Suppression of Political Frauds.5
Are there any takers?"

Smith's respect for the rights of minorities was ex-
pressed in the debate which waxed very warm on the pro-
posed constitutional article providing for a literacy test for
voters. He relieved the tension by the following bit, re-
ferring to previous arguments, pro and con, for the lit-
eracy test. Smith throughout the Convention showed him-
self in favor of free speech and freedom of voting as an
antidote to all forms of discontent, including extreme so-
cialism. He said:

"Once a Socialist came down here from Schenectady as
an assemblyman. He had a wrong impression about every-
thing in this chamber, but after a while he found he could
take part in the debates of the Assembly as freely as any
of us. He also found that all it required to get a bill,
through the House was seventy-six votes, his being as
good as any one else's.

"Then that Socialist Assemblyman went to the Hotel
Ten Eyck barber shop and got his hair cut."

"Point of order," called William Barnes of Albany at

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

this point. "The gentleman has exceeded his time limit."

The Speaker said the time was up. "Mr. Chairman,"
Smith pleaded, "give me a few minutes to get him out of
the barber shop."

This was the man of whom Smith later said: "When
the Assembly had the first Socialist, I induced my friend,
Ed Merritt, to recognize him in the Assembly as leader of
a party 5 to appoint him on important committees. Merritt
yielded and he was so recognized."

Speaking to Brooklyn delegates about a proposed article
especially affecting that city, Smith said: "To the Brook-
lyn delegates let me say that Parmalee Jones, 'Hungary
Joe/ or any of the old-time gold-brick operators, not even
'Grand Central Pete,' the man that in his day shone above
them all because of his ability, had anything on the com-
mittee that handed you men this article."

In favoring an amendment raising the salary for sen-
ators and assemblymen from $1,500 to $2,500, Smith
talked of the life of a legislator and asked, "You don't
want to see him coming out of an Essex Lunch Room, do
you?" The Essex Lunch Room represented the cheaper
type of lunch-room in Albany. When Delegate Griffen
painted a picture of the expense of a campaign, in the
course of which he said, "My election cost me $1,800 the
first time I was elected j the second time I was elected it
cost me pretty nearly as much j there are advertisements
in newspapers of all kinds, published in every language ;
they expect that; that is part of the mild blackmail to

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PROVING HIS MASTERY

which candidates are subject, and I, together with every
other man who runs for office in New York City, has to
submit to it," Smith chuckled and cried aloud: "Not me."

Favoring an amendment providing for the printing of
debates in the Legislature, Smith said: "This winter we
had several very important propositions upon which mem-
bers themselves tried to secure some literature around the
Capitol in relation to the subject to send to debating so-
cieties, and so I think it will do a great deal of good. And
another thing, it will be a kind of automatic valve on hot
air, and if there is anything needed in this room, it is said
valve. There is a good deal said here that when it gets
into print won't look very good and this may restrain
some people from saying it."

In discussing the Judiciary Article, Smith contributed
a bit of common sense in support of one of the Commit-
tee's recommendations that the Court of Claims be con-
stitutionalized and not subjected to frequent changes, and
that all claims against the State be brought before it in-
stead of before courts meeting in different parts of the
State. Said Smith : "I didn't expect it would fall to my lot
to say anything at all about the Judiciary Article, but on
this particular point I happened to have a little bit of
knowledge, of which I thought the Convention should
have the benefit, if there is any benefit in it. The Court of
Claims has been more or less the football of politics in
this building for about twelve to fifteen years. I have been
present here while it has been kicked out and in again, and

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out and back again, while by legislation the terms of
the judges have been extended, and it is a matter of great
satisfaction for me to know that, in speaking for the con-
tinuation of the Court, my party was a mild offender in
that respect

"Now if you are to have the Court, it should be taken
care of in the constitution so that there could be no re-
currence of that. That you should have a Court may be a
matter for lawyers to determine, but every now and then
when the brain becomes a bit befogged by the heavy legal
talk, a little stand by the layman helps a bit. Having no
interest whatever in any claims against the State, and hav-
ing considerably less in their attorneys, but having some
interest in the State and considerable interest in the tax-
payers, I respectfully submit to the Convention that if we
are going to continue to allow the State to be sued, let it
all be done in one place so that we can keep our eye on it."

If he had not preferred, with every impulse of his na-
ture, to turn complex facts into simple language and pic-
tures of human life, he could never have been started on a
career in which most of his fundamental glory has been
the ability to win victories by making hard questions clear.
It was fortunate for the liberal element in New York State
that Smith was able to accomplish this feat. Many a time
liberalism, or the desire to make political changes to pro-
mote justice, is more distinguished by ethical qualities than
by practical grasp. The reformer not infrequently attaches
his faith to some one measure which serves as a rallying

PROVING HIS MASTERY

point for a time and then has to be thrown aside. A large
part of the leaders in the last quarter of a century, who
have stood out in the United States as coming prophets,
have been prosecuting attorneys, or else men with the
nature of prosecuting attorneys. It is some conception of
right and wrong in the abstract that furnishes their mo-
mentum. This Convention, dealing with many topics, most
of them important and complex, was the perfect arena for
a mind like Smith's, concrete to its furthest corner. Meta-
physics has been defined in the well-known parody as the
search in a dark room by a blind man for a black cat that
isn't there. It would be equally possible to parody the
hard-boiled adherent of fact in the limited, unimaginative
sense. Smith was anything but hard-boiled, unimaginative
or limited. Technical facts to him were transmuted by an
immediate, inevitable process into what they mean to
living beings.

The question of a minimum wage for women was ap-
proached by him just as for many years the workmen's
compensation had been approached. He was capable of
dealing with Supreme Court decisions and he was capable
of meeting the old-fashioned argument of eighteenth cen-
tury individualism as put forth by William Barnes, but in
the forefront of his thinking and his talking was always
the effect of the measure on the lives of people whom he
knew. It was through sympathetic understanding that
he was reaching an ever more articulate conception of the
State as an instrument for the promotion of human justice

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and welfare. Historical precedents of an obstructive nature
could be mastered and dealt with by him, but they were
nothing which he reverenced. He is a conservative, in
some respects, and always will be, and he never has been
and never will be a radical in the sense of being interested
in abstract, sudden and complete experiments based on
guesswork 5 but a liberal or progressive he unmistakably
is, because he wishes ordinary people to have a chance, and
he has never felt that the world has reached that stage in
which ordinary people have the best conceivable treatment
from dominating forces.

Smith himself said: "There are two things that helped
me in the Constitutional Convention; were responsible
for any knowledge I displayed there. First, there was my
knowledge of the State government that came from my
studies of the appropriation bills. Whatever intimate
knowledge I had about the State came from what I knew
about how it spent its money, for every item in the appro-
priation bill tells a story of State problems and State
needs, or of State extravagance. Secondly, it must be borne
in mind that most of the great activities of the State
started in 1907, when the Public Service Commission was
established, and the Conservation Commission and other
important agencies. Being familiar with how they started,
I naturally knew something about them when they were
discussed in the Constitutional Convention."

Smith was a member of three sub-committees of the
Convention: (i) The Legislature and Its Organization,

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PROVING HIS MASTERY

of which Mr. Brackett was Chairman j (2) Legislative
Powers, of which Mr. Barnes was Chairman j (3) Indus-
trial Interests, presided over by Mr. Parsons.

Among the subjects discussed by Smith were: apportion-
ment, home rule, executive budget, State appropriations,
taxation, water power and conservation, living wage for
women and children, the use of the Governor's Emer-
gency Message to facilitate legislation, the judiciary ar-
ticle, public service corporations, the literacy test, the pro-
hibition of manufacturing in tenements, the reorganization
of the State departments, the protection of police and fire-
men in the Civil Service by safeguarding their right of
certiorari, the taxation of corporations, the financing of
private and local bills, bond issues for permanent improve-
ments, the Court of Claims, the printing of Senate and
Assembly debates, public utilities, a short ballot. There
was no debate of importance to which Smith did not con-
tribute knowledge and constructive cooperation. Nobody
can really understand his career who has not staying power
enough to grasp something of the intricate questions of
our day.

His method of argument included the history of the
past to illuminate the present. He frequently started with
history. Here he made exact citations, outlining original
laws and amendments up to the period under considera-
tion. His memory never failed. He was frequently inter-
rupted on some question of fact, but in every case he was
the victor.

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

The first important debate in which he participated
brought out the fundamental clash of political interest be-
tween the Republican and Democratic parties. It was in
connection with the report submitted by the Committee
on the Legislature and its Reorganization, which amended
the Constitution of 1894, limiting the representation of
two adjoining counties of the City of New York, by pro-
viding a prohibition against a representation of more than
one-half of the Legislature from five adjoining counties.
In 1894 the two adjoining counties were the thickly popu-
lated counties of Manhattan and Kings, then known as
New York and Brooklyn. In 1915 the population was
spread through the five counties of Greater New York
and it was deemed necessary by the Republican majority
to freeze into the constitution a provision putting the City
of New York permanently in the minority and giving a
normal control of the Legislature to the Republican party
which drew its main support from the rural communities.

The uneasiness of the great city on the subject of home
rule had existed for many years. It was reflected in the
regular Democratic party doctrine. It had been pointed
out as an evil by Samuel J. Tilden when he was governor.
Smith led those who opposed the theory of apportion-
ment based upon territory and argued that the unit of rep-
resentation should be the individual and not his place of
residence.

"Going back as far as you can in political history," said
he, "apportionments have always spelled politics. In 1894

PROVING HIS MASTERY

the Constitutional Convention erected this Senatorial dis-
trict on Manhattan Island j commencing at Fourteenth
Street, going north along Sixth Avenue to Fifteenth
Street, and then north on Seventh Avenue to West For-
tieth Street, then over to Eighth Avenue, then east on
Ninety-sixth Street down to Lexington Avenue to Third
Avenue, around Irving Place to Fourteenth Street, to the
place of beginning. Of course, there can be no such thing
as a suggestion of politics in the making of that district j
as on the basis of twenty city blocks to a mile, Fourteenth
Street to Ninetieth is three miles long and two miles wide.

"That was done, of course, so that the candidate for
senator from the political senatorial district could on regis-
tration days and election days just walk up Fifth Avenue,
look up and down the streets, and look around and see if
the election district captains and the poll clerks and work-
ers were absolutely Republican and thereby assure to them
at least one senator on Manhattan Island.

"We had a little sample of apportionment in the Leg-
islature just adjourned. Without any precedent for it the
last Legislature undertook to apportion the aldermanic
districts in New York City. They did not say that it came
from any great demand on the part of the people that
there be any change in the lines of the districts. They were
frank and open about it. They were open about it, and
they said that it was done for the purpose of trying to
select a fusion or an anti-Tammany Board of Aldermen in
the second two years of Mayor Mitchel's term and follow-

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

ing the little lessons we have learned from our constitu-
tion, and having uttered our little political prayer, we
made all the Republican districts this way (hands held
out a short distance apart), and then we made the Demo-
cratic districts this way (hands stretched far apart)." Here
he was interrupted by laughter, a usual tribute to his com-
edy. He went on: "The Mayor of the City said he would
like to sign the bill 5 he said he wanted to show that
fraternal spirit that the Senator from Saratoga speaks of
so eloquently, but it was too raw, it was more than he
could stand."

Home rule is easier as a campaign slogan than as a leg-
islative or constitutional problem. Any solution of the
Home rule problem must take account of the relation of
the City to the greater sovereign, the State. How far the
City is an agency of the State and how far it can act inde-
pendently of it has taxed acute legal minds.

The majority report granted some clear home rule
powers to the cities, but it provided checks by the State
which met with sharp opposition from the Democratic
minority. The underlying conception of the home rule
amendment as submitted by the majority was ably criti-
cized by Senator James F. Foley and Judge Morgan J.
O'Brien, and two provisions particularly aroused Senator
Wagner and Alfred E. Smith. One required that after a
city had acted on a charter, or a charter amendment, such
action must be laid before the Legislature.

The Democratic minority knew the adoption of its

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PROVING HIS MASTERY

minority report by the Convention was not possible. It
therefore resorted to the strategy of liberalizing the ma-
jority report by submitting a number of amendments. No
delegate was more active than Smith in deluging the Con-
vention with changes in phraseology designed to give the
cities more home rule.

He first insisted upon the right of the city to apportion
its own aldermanic districts. The right was denied the city
on the ground that it affected the framework of the gov-
ernment. Smith submitted amendments providing that if
one per cent, of the voters protested against an amend-
ment affecting the framework of the City there should be
a vote on it at the next ensuing election.

When asked by Mr. Herbert Parsons whether that was
the amendment requested by the Citizens' Union, Smith
replied: "I believe that it is either the Citizens' Union or
the City Club. I don't know which it is. They all look alike
to me. When they have a good idea I always like to line
up behind it. I don't mind annexing them when they are
right."

After flinging amendment after amendment to the Con-
vention, only to have them all rejected, he said, "I desire
to offer one final amendment. The Good Book says,
'While the light holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may
return.' " Even this last amendment was lost.

While these two debates were along familiar lines of
Democratic theory, the majority of the debates had little
party significance. They concerned the business of the

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State. Here the able Assemblyman was at his best.
Henry L. Stimson, chairman of the Committee on the
Executive Budget, presented one of the most closely rea-
soned and cogent reports of the Convention. Smith fol-
lowed. In an address packed with knowledge and en-
livened by humor, he showed the chief cause of extrava-
gance in the State government — the absence of a check
upon the passage of local and private bills, often passed
to favor representatives, chiefly from up-state, whose po-
litical lives depended upon keeping pre-election promises
to obtain State appropriations for local improvements. He
intended to check this extravagance by requiring a two-
thirds vote. A number of his amendments were accepted
by Stimson. "If you keep on making amendments to the
Constitution, Al," said one of his colleagues, "so much
of it will be your handiwork you will have to support it at
the polls."

Smith began by reminding the Convention that, on the
question of State appropriations, he probably spoke with
as much personal experience as any man in the Conven-
tion. He reminded them that he had been chairman of the
Committee on Ways and Means in 1911 and ever since
with the exception of 1913, when he was Speaker of the
House. "So I can speak," he said, "from the practical side
rather than the theoretical side. I am in accord with the
Committee on the preparation outside of the Legislature
of a budget and its submission to the Legislature. But the
proposal set forth by the Committee on Finance, and so

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PROVING HIS MASTERY

well and so ably explained by the gentleman from New
York, to my way of thinking, does not go half far
enough." He then showed that the proposed budgetary
reform reached only about half of the budget appropria-
tions of the State.

It was to prevent logrolling for local improvements
that he submitted his suggestion requiring two-thirds of
the members of each House to vote for every bill appro-
priating public money or property for local or private pur-
poses, or for State purposes, when less than the whole
State is to be directly or mainly benefited by the expendi-
ture, except appropriations for the repair or maintenance
of canals, or the support or construction of State institu-
tions. To control extravagance he advocated that no
money shall be paid out for one year after the passage of
the appropriation act, and that in stating the object of the
appropriation, each object and exact sum shall be set
forth, and that the head of each department and State
institution shall annually in December submit a statement
under oath of the desired appropriations, accompanied by
facts and comparisons in support of the requests, the
Governor to transmit it to the Legislature in January
with his recommendations.

Already in the Constitutional Convention Smith be-
lieved in the necessity of bond issues for the construction
of State institutions and the furtherance of permanent
improvements. The debate between him and Chairman
Stimson was a forerunner of his later debates when he sue-

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

ceeded in having the policy submitted to the people, who
approved his position in 1923 and 1925.

Some of the most interesting debates were occasioned
by those proposed amendments to the new constitution
which would limit or cripple the State as an instrumen-
tality for social welfare legislation. No question taken up
was more basic than that presented by William Barnes,
whose political influence extended throughout the State
and into the national organization. In New York State he
was the leading opponent of Theodore Roosevelt and the
Progressive Party. In the National Convention in 1912,
he was a tower of strength for the Old Guard in their
fight for control of the Republican organization.

Barnes was brave, honest, and forcible. His intellec-
tual processes were large, even if reactionary. He submit-
ted a constitutional amendment that the Legislature shall
not pass any bill granting to any class of individuals any
privileges or immunities not granted equally to all mem-
bers of the State.

He later accepted the following amendment submitted
by Mr. Olcott: "The Legislature shall not grant any privi-
lege or immunity not granted equally to all the members
of the State."

Barnes defended his theory by declaring that it repre-
sented the theory of equality upon which our American
institutions are based, and that in recent years the social
legislation advocated by popular leaders and passed by
legislators was in violation of this American principle. His

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PROVING HIS MASTERY

address had all the logical cogency of an eighteenth cen-
tury philosopher. The advocates of social legislation, ac-
cording to him, were using the same tools that Bismarck
used against the Socialists of Germany. The German
statesmen used social legislation to buttress up an auto-
! era tic state 5 the American reformers were leading free
! America into an autocracy such as Bismarck desired for
Germany. Like Bismarck, instead of stopping socialism,
they were strengthening it. Every violation of the princi-
ple of equality naturally tended to establish its opposite.
[The principle of privilege led to autocracy.

Progressives in Barnes's own party, like General Wick-
ersham, Henry L. Stimson, and Herbert Parsons, pointed
out that this amendment, if a part of the constitution,
would prevent further labor and humanitarian legislation,
such as workmen's compensation and child welfare laws,
intended to relieve injustices that arise from modern
social and industrial conditions.

Leading the debate in opposition to the Barnes measure,
Smith said: "Gentlemen around this chamber would lead
us to believe that law in a democracy is the expression of
some divine or eternal right. I am Unable to see it that
>vay. My idea of law and democracy is the expression of
;what is best, what fits the present-day needs of society,
.what goes the farthest to do the greatest gxxxi for the
greatest number. . . .

"I am afraid that a lot of men have an entirely wrong
idea about workmen's compensation. Nobody has ever

[121]

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been able to satisfy me that that is a privilege or an im-*
munity. . . » ^Vorkmen's compensation is an indirect tax
upon the industry of the State for the purpose of relieving
the shoulders of all the people from carrying the burden
rof the men that are injured or killed in the upbuilding
•of an industry.

1 "Then there is the so-called mothers' pension law. That
is a wrong name for the act. There is no pension to a
widowed mother. The State long years ago adopted the
policy that it was, through its civil divisions, committed
to the care and education of homeless and destitute chil-
dren. The formation of the Child Welfare Boards was
simply a change in the method. Rather than have the in-
stitution the agent of the State, the State decided that the
work could best be done by the mother if she was a fit and
proper person, and forthwith it transferred that agency
from the institution to the mother herself. The mother,
as such, receives no money j or rather, not one dollar is
contributed to her for her support. Everything she does,
she does as the agent of the State, just as surely as the
institution did, and for the care and maintenance of her
children, her home is temporarily turned into a State
institution."

His characteristic way of meeting objections to humane
legislation was shown again when he said: "One of the
arguments against the minimum wage that can be dissi-
pated into thin air by a wave of the hand is the argument
that it may some time be made to extend to men.

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"Everybody around this chamber knows that by labor
unions and by labor organizations men have it in their
power, and they do today, to exact a minimum wage. I
had the personal experience one time as a trustee of public
buildings upon the repair work on this Capitol after the
fire. I found that the Bricklayers' Association of this
county had fixed the minimum wage for this county 5 that
it was a different one for New York County, varying, I
presume, with the cost of living or with the surrounding
conditions. They had the strength and the force because
of their organization to demand a minimum wage, and it
is fixed, if not by law, so thoroughly by custom, that you
cannot conduct a public work or a public operation in this
State without a full recognition of that fact.

"Women and children have no organization. No woman
goes to work, or no young girl goes to work, with the in-
tention of forever working in the department store or a
shirt factory or in a shirtwaist factory. She goes there for
a start in life. Her ultimate desire is the desire of all
women, that she have her own home and her own family.
Consequently they never organize. Consequently they are
without the power to present their claims, and it is pro-
posed by this Legislature that the State itself help them
to present the claim."

The minimum wage proposal was beaten at the end by
men like Root and Wickersham by shutting off debate.
Smith had this in mind when he was asked for a sum-
mary of the whole work of the Convention. HQ replied:

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

"Not a bad job. But I must say that the steam roller they
used was the most scientific I ever experienced. Also the
chlorine gas as they used it was admirable."

Again referring to the minimum wage for women.
Smith said: "This legislation means progress, and I do not
have to tell a man or woman in this hall today that
progress is hard to make. It is very difficult. Take any
great labor reform and make a study of how long it took
to enact it in this State j the Workmen's Compensation
Act, probably the most forward-looking piece of legisla-
tion of its kind ever enacted in this State, was a long time
being put through. The people themselves at a general
election were obliged to amend their own constitution be-
fore we could get that legislation and organize a commis-
sion in this State."

It will not do to ask the most patient reader to follow
up at this point all the important subjects handled in these
five months, particularly as some of them can be seen more
clearly when they have had fuller development during the
governorships. In the conservation of national resources,
for example, Smith introduced an amendment accepted
by the Committee and the Convention which made men
connected with the lumber industry and financially inter-
ested in power or utility companies ineligible for office in
departments having to do with conservation. He also
made by this amendment a policy of public development
of natural resources of the State constitutionally possible.
Since he has been Governor, that fight has been so fierce

PROVING HIS MASTERY

and so important that it makes an admirable illustration
of the consistency of his life. Policies stressed later were in
his mind thus early. Just as his mastery in the Convention
traces back to the Ways and Means Committee, first of
all, and then to the factory investigation, so does the
story lead logically on from the Ways and Means Com-
mittee, the factory investigation, and the Convention, to
what has been accomplished in the Governor's chair. To a
careless observer, Smith's story may be primarily a story
of personal popularity and campaigning gifts. It is easy
to overlook the essential principle that it is a story of
enormously hard, continuous work.

The cooperation between Herbert Parsons, who spon-
sored the regulation of manufacturing in tenements, and
Smith, was one of the pleasant and effective features of the
Convention. Again, there was the cooperation between
him and the most distinguished Republicans in the reor-
ganization program. That program included the short bal-
lot and the executive budget. Smith is not the type of
Democrat who believes in electing everybody and in avoid-
ing centralization of power. He never fears to take away
from the public a function which the public cannot success-
fully exercise. It can vote with some intelligence for a few
offices, but to invite it to fill dozens of offices is to ex-
press a conception of democracy that would prevent de-
mocracy from being efficient. The underlying idea of the
short ballot was inevitably welcome to a mind like Smith's,
expert and honest One of the first names associated with

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

the nation-wide fight for this reform, long before he was
president, was the name of Woodrow Wilson.

One of the most interesting debates in the Convention
was on the report of the Committee on Public Utilities,
providing that public service commissioners be made con-
stitutional officers. The original report also provided that
the removals be made by the Governor by and with the
consent of the Senate.

In this debate, on the Democratic side, delegates Wag-
ner, Foley, and Smith played leading roles. They were
opposed to encroaching upon the power of the Legislature.
The original report gave to the Commission powers of
rate-making concurrent with that of the Legislature, and
Smith gave one of his lucid expositions of the history of
public service legislation in this State and showed how,
under the double-headed commission, New York City
spends eighty-five per cent, of all the money required for
its administration upon transit construction. He wanted the
Legislature free to decide whether to repose the regula-
tion of public utilities in one commission and to have the
city free to act upon its construction problems. In battling
for the City of New York he said in his conclusion: "If
we now fix the Constitution so that we must have two
commissions it may work a very great injustice to the
City of New York because if we are to continue the regu-
lation of rates and the character of service as a state func-
tion it should be done for the City of New York without
cost just the same as it is now done for Buffalo and

PROVING HIS MASTERY

Syracuse and Rochester and Utica and Albany without
any direct cost to their taxpayers and it will only be right
and proper that that part of the management and control
of the subways which might be called the fiscal business
should be turned over to the city authorities."

The original report submitted by the committee was
supplemented by a simple amendment introduced by floor
leader Wickersham which merely provided: "There shall
be two public service commissions. The commission shall
be appointed by the Governor by and with the consent of
the Senate. The Governor may remove any commissioner
for cause after service upon him of a written statement
of the said cause and an opportunity to be heard thereon.

"Until the Legislature shall otherwise provide, the ex-
isting commissions shall continue with the jurisdictions and
powers at present vested in them."

Here also Smith's contributions to the debate were a
forerunner of many subsequent contests.

The debates in the Constitutional Convention give a
picture of Smith in a mixed role. He is greatly helpful
in clearing up important amendments, and cooperative
with the majority on business questions especially, but
throughout he is still the leader of the minority, and not
wholly emancipated from the psychology of the machine.
Throughout he plays the role of the New York City
leader ever ready to do battle for the metropolis. He
misses no opportunity to expose the injustice done it, and
not only through the unfair apportionment article, which

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

is the chief reason for his opposition to the constitution.
In the same line are his efforts to liberalize the half meas-
ures of home rule, granted by the Sub-Committee on
Cities. Similar are his citations of instances when the City;
of New York does not receive its fair share of the State
appropriations, as in the field of education. No one was
more helpful in perfecting the financial sections of the
constitution. Some features of the report of Chairman
Tanner on State departments he opposed. He then disbe-
lieved in some principles which he later espoused, to con-
solidate and reorganize the many commissions and bu-
reaus of the State government.

He went so far as to resist making Civil Service Com-
missioners constitutional officers, and advocated their ap-
pointment every two years by the incoming Governor, a
proposal greatly favored by the patronage politicians,
who are averse to having Civil Service Commissioners in-
dependent of the appointing power. He carried his princi-
ple of responsible government so far as to oppose a prin-
ciple which has served as one of the cardinal tenets of
Civil Service reformers, providing for overlapping terms
of Civil Service Commissions so as to insure their inde-
pendence of the Governor. Smith contended that "human
nature makes this impossible." "No Civil Service Com-
missions are in practice independent of the Governor."

Smith was emerging from the machine, but his feet
were still fettered by it. Considering his position in the

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PROVING HIS MASTERY

party at the time, he was growing out of the mold as f ast:
as the situation permitted.

When Smith later advocated the very reorganization
program that he criticized in the Convention, with the
same arguments his opponents used against him, he
frankly acknowledged that he was not afraid to change his
mind. He became the principal asset to put through
the reorganization program in the face of the opposition
of the machine leaders in the Republican party, whose
elder statesmen, like Root, Stimson, Tanner, and Parsons,
were responsible for that program. In this whole work,
what enlisted his deepest enthusiasm was the effort to
make of the constitution an instrument of social liberalism.

As Smith walked out of the Assembly Hall, at the end
of this Convention, he had won a different standing. He
was no longer to be thought of primarily as the most pop-
ular and well-informed of the Tammany leaders, for the
picture was sunk in a larger one. The change meant
that he had convinced the leaders of the opposite party
that he was the greatest master of government in the
whole state. He had lost nothing with his own people. He
was to continue to be loved by those among whom he was
born; with whom he had played, rejoiced, and sorrowed;
but his brains, his honesty and determination, his extraor-
dinary clearness and memory, had made him new friends
and followers, and very powerful ones. His standing as an
adroit and fascinating politician was henceforth to take

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second place. In first place was to be the quality of a man
who could do the business of a great State better than
any one else. Looking back on the total work of the Con-
vention and commenting on it with his usual easy candor,
the Governor once observed: "I am frank to say that the
Convention of 1915 has afforded me a great opportunity,
I got a lot out of it later on. And I never allowed my cam-
paign managers to overlook anything that happened at
its sessions."

[130]

Chapter V

OPPORTUNITY

THE Constitutional Convention was still in session when
Mark Eisner, later collector of internal revenue under
Wilson, arose and announced that the Democratic County
Convention had nominated Alfred E. Smith for the office
of sheriff. It was a surprise to Smith himself. He believed
as the majority believed, that the most likely person to
receive the nomination was Big Bill Edwards, a famous
football captain of Princeton who had been street cleaning
commissioner. Murphy knew what he was doing. He liked
Smith, and he knew the poverty of the young leader.
During the hard siege of work at Albany, Smith remained
poor. His salary was $1,500. With a family of young
children it was not easy.

This office of sheriff then paid fees amounting to from
$50,000 to $60,000 a year and inevitably was a prize. By;
tradition, it was looked upon by the district leaders as be-
longing to them. As they sat around in Murphy's office
in September and discussed who was to have it this time,
they raised this traditional right of the leaders. When
Murphy said anything it usually had its effect. He now
asked whether they looked upon Robert Wagner and
Alfred E. Smith as coming under the classification of

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leaders. The answer was that they did so look upon them.
Murphy then went to work on the first two men of the
nominating Convention delegates, taken in alphabetical
order, to persuade them to vote for Smith. He was count-
ing on the psychology of the delegates not to refuse such
a lead. His conversation with the district leaders had all
the look of an attempt merely to find out prevailing
opinion, but it was an example of the success of his form
of leadership.

It has been the custom of Tammany Hall to reward
members of the Legislature, especially the leaders who
have given long and faithful service, through some form
of promotion or of patronage. Smith had served eleven
years. He was not a lawyer who could receive patronage
from the courts. He had no other means of support. It
was probably a sense of justice added to affection for
Smith that decided Murphy. Certainly there was an out-
burst of public support for Smith, such as had not been
seen for a regular Tammany man. In his first address of
the campaign, he said: "I don't know much about the
office of sheriff, as I haven't been there ever since Foley
held this job. ... If I am elected in November, I will
by January first know more about the sheriff's office than
Sheriff Grifenhagen does, and by January fifteenth I will
know all about it."

The Citizens' Union created surprise and consternation
by coming out for Smith. Grifenhagen, the Republican
then in office, emitted howls of rage and disappointment,

OPPORTUNITY

including the charge that the Citizens' Union had gone
over to Tammany Hall. In many and many a case, the
endorsement of reform bodies is of little importance. It
was of high importance in this case, because it dramatized a
change in the public's attitude toward Smith. The Union
said: "Alfred E. Smith is endorsed for Sheriff of New
York County. As to his qualifications for this office there
can be no question. The service to the State rendered by
Mr. Smith in the Constitutional Convention this year en-
titles him to special consideration.

"In giving this high praise to Mr. Smith we are neither
unmindful of his political connection nor his record dur-
ing his earlier career as a member of the Assembly when
we repeatedly had occasion to criticize his activities as
representing a desire to serve his party rather than the
public interest. Although a party leader, Mr. Smith has
in recent years been instrumental in obtaining much desir-
able and important legislation."

Concerning this action the New York World said: "The
Citizens' Union endorsement has always been part of the
honest graft of Republican candidates for main offices.
. . . It is a scandal that Charles F. Murphy should pan-
der to the moral sentiment of the community and permit
a respectable candidate to be nominated for Sheriff."

The Tribune was the leading Republican paper in the
city. It said: "His ability, integrity, industry are not ques-
tioned either by Republicans or Independents."

In another editorial the same newspaper said: "The

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UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

City of New York could well afford to pay Alfred E.
Smith all the prospective emoluments of the Sheriff's
office as a consideration for his continuing to represent a
local Assembly district at Albany. In the past ten years
there has been no Republican, Progressive or Democrat
in the State Legislature who has rendered as effective,
useful, downright valuable service to this town as ex-
Speaker Smith.

"The limitations of the Tammany candidate for Sheriff
in New York County are the limitations of the machine
politician. At Albany Mr. Smith has 'taken orders.' He is
one of Murphy's 'boys.' But he has not hesitated to oppose
Tammany proposals in conference, and he has never
lacked the courage to tell Murphy to his face what other
Democrats of far greater pretensions to independence and
influence hesitated to whisper around the corner.

"The trouble with most Republican representatives at
Albany has been that they have been Republicans before
they were New Yorkers, that they have given attention to
what was desired by a party having its headquarters up
the state instead of in the city. As a consequence the city
has been plundered and despoiled and the local Republi-
can representative has been without honor at home or
elsewhere.

"With no such handicap to carry, Assemblyman Smith
has given his whole attention to city interests. A true
leader, a genuine compeller of men, a man of wit and
force and an instinctive grasp on legislative practice, he

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has made a real reputation for himself at the Capitol and
has deserved well of the large constituency which is his
own town." At another time it spoke of him as "the ablest
and most attractive young man in the political life of
the town."

Thomas Mott Osborn, describing himself as an inde-
pendent Democrat, speaking later of this election, said:
"When he last ran for office in New York City, the news-
papers of all shades of political opinion gave him un-
stinted commendation. Any man who can receive such a
tribute from the press of New York is no ordinary man 5
and the unbiased newspaper opinion is much more to be
trusted than any partisan appeals now."

Organized labor was his friend. Shortly before this
date, the Legislative Labor News said: "As a member of
the Factory Commission, Mr. Smith learned the true labor
conditions of the State, and in enacting laws for the wage-
earners and defending them against mutilation his work
is no lip service. It comes from his big heart and brainy
head."

The Sun was a Republican organ that has frequently
departed from the partisan lineup where Smith has been
concerned. On October 23 it said: "The Citizens' Union
does credit to itself as well as to the Democratic candi-
date for Sheriff of New York County, Alfred E. Smith, in
endorsing him as a man for the voters to support at the
polls on November 2. This is a merited acknowledgment
of the service Mr. Smith has rendered in laboring ably and

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UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

energetically in the interest of New York City in the Leg-
islature, where he rose to the position of Speaker of the
Assembly simply because he demonstrated a force of char-
acter in dealing with men and affairs that could not be
downed.

"During the recent orgy of extravagance indulged in
by the Republican Legislature, Mr. Smith and Senator
Robert F. Wagner, as the minority leaders of the two
Houses, fought to the last ditch to protect the taxpayers
of this city. Although the present municipal administration
was elected in opposition to their party they did not hesi-
tate to act as the spokesmen for Mayor Mitchel and Presi-
dent McAneny on the floor of the Legislature in an effort
to prevent the partisan raid on the city treasury.

"Mr. Smith's promotion to the most coveted position to
be filled at this fall's election is deserved. It is only to be
regretted that his service to the city in the Legislature
when the Republicans resume their raiding — providing
the Democrats fail to carry the Assembly — will be sadly
missed."

He was naturally supported by the independent Dem-
ocratic Times. Outside newspapers also commented some-
what on the election, and the loss to the Legislature was
regretted by Republicans and Independents as well as
Democrats. The Albany Times Union said: "He has tons
of brains and a magnetic personality. Republicans, as well
as Democrats, like and admire Al Smith. The newspaper
men will tell you he is one of the ablest legislators Albany

OPPORTUNITY

has seen in many a day. The office of Sheriff of New York
County is a rich prize and the best is none too good for
Al."

Smith's growth as an expert and the new contacts with
different elements which he formed, first on the Factory
Commission and then in the Convention, had not changed
his habits of life. His real people were still the masses of
the lower East Side. Two years before, when Mayor Gay-
nor happened to ask him what he thought of all-night
cabarets, Smith replied: "Why, Mr. Mayor, I don't be-
lieve I get above Canal Street at night once a year. Once
in a long time, Mrs. Smith and I go uptown and take
dinner at the Knickerbocker just to remember what it is
like. But you can't prove anything about those cabaret
places by me."

And a little later, when Smith was asked to give a sum-
mary of his life, he produced the following:

"Born in Roosevelt Street, over a German barber-shop -,
did odd jobsj went to the Assembly 5 was sorry for it the
first year; went to the Assembly again 5 and then I was
Sheriff, and now I am President of the Board of Alder-
men. Live where I was born, or very close to it. I don't
get above Fourteenth Street, only occasionally."

A few weeks after his nomination for Sheriff, there was
an Old Home Week at Oliver Street. The candidate was
welcomed by his neighbors. Newspapers at the time con-
tained picturesque accounts of this celebration and the
neighborhood life. Irish-American loyalty and pride were

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

to the front, but Italians, Russians and even Chinese were
in the welcoming throng, and mothers of the neighbor-
hood were in force, as they have been steadily when-
ever Al Smith has been concerned.

Oliver Street is a home of large families. During the
campaign there was an entertainment in which one of the
promised attractions was to be a delegation made up of the
largest families: Mrs. Michael Santangelo with eleven;
Mrs. Louis Lehan with seven ; Mrs. Jacob Cohen with
fourteen j Mrs. Charles McDermott with eight; Mrs.
Charles Napoli with eight; Mrs. Robuta with seven; and
Mrs. Timmons with eight. "Must make you rather lone-
some, Al," said one of his friends, "all those members of
the Anti-Race-Suicide Club and you with a mere five chil-
dren." "Don't blame me," said Al. "Remember for twelve
years I have been a member of the Legislature and had
to spend my winters in Albany."

During the campaign, Smith said: "I shall so conduct
the sheriff's office, if elected, that not only will it be effi-
cient, but it will cost the taxpayers as little as possible
under the law."

He had hesitated for some time to permit his friends to
make him a candidate for the office, believing he was
needed at Albany. On this subject he now said: "I am not
hunting for big fees. I never have been mercenary. Other-
wise, I should not have served so many years in the As-
sembly at $ 1,500 a year."

In lighter vein he observed after election that the cost

[138]

OPPORTUNITY

of having his dress suit pressed was eating up the office
fees. His children, he said, used to call it his best suit, but
now they had learned to sneer at it because he wore it
every night

An upstate legislator had asked him whether they gave
the Sheriff good living quarters in the jail down in New
York. Smith replied: "They do not punish the Sheriff like
that down here. He doesn't have to live in jail. They feed
him to death. They may give him good money in his office,
but they ruin his digestion."

Smith was frequently asked about the new constitution,
both before the vote on it and after. His position was that
he must very reluctantly be against it. This was on two
grounds: that New York was not fairly represented, and
that it was unjust and unsound to compel the people to
vote for measures which they disapproved in order to vote
for measures of which they did approve.

The sovereign rights, he said, of the people of New
York were invaded when they were asked to adopt to-
gether all of the provisions that document contained.

When the new Sheriff on January i turned up in his
office, he found himself among banks of red roses, lilies,
chrysanthemums, violets and cigars. Also, there were pres-
ent to greet him politicians, open seekers for office, dis-
guised seekers for office, honest friends, and the Smith
family.

As the new Sheriff took his seat in his swivel chair, at his
elbow stood his mother, who found time to remark,

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

"Alfred is a good boy and I am proud of him." His wife
was there, his children, and his sister, Mrs. Glynn.

His first official act was to sign receipts for everything
the office contained, from the cash in the bank to the fur-
niture, and he remarked: "I guess I won't receipt for the
prisoners in Ludlow Street Jail until I find out from the
warden whether any of them walked out this morning by
mistake."

Turning to those whom he had appointed to office he
said: "I want to say to you all this morning, that in ap-
pointing you to office, I expect from you the service I be-
lieve the people of this county expect from me. I desire
with all my heart to show gratitude in a substantial way
for the overwhelming vote of last November."

References to a larger future had begun to appear in
the newspapers. There was some talk of him as the suc-
cessor to Murphy in the leadership of the Hall. He was
occasionally mentioned for mayor and for governor. In a
conversation in which the question of the mayoralty came
up, Smith once explained his view of that office in connec-
tion with his own methods and with the opportunities oif
benefiting the city. "I could never accept that job," he
said, "unless it was in connection with reorganization of
the city government. If such a reorganization was carried
out, I could get rid of incompetent office holders. I could
say to a man whom I've known all my life, 'Joe, you have
done your work well, but the people voted a change of

[140]

OPPORTUNITY

this whole system. I am sorry, but there is no place for you
in the new plan.5 "

The sheriff's office was not much of a job for Smith,
from the point of view of hard work, after such perfor-
mances as he had given on the Ways and Means Com-
mittee and at the Convention. He arranged to have every
bill introduced at Albany sent to him. He also constantly
saw politicians of varying hues from the capital. When
the time for the next important step came, two and a half
years later, he knew the situation in the state almost as
well as if he had been in Albany.

Smith had been sheriff but a few weeks when he had
occasion to attend a banquet of newsboys. To these little
fellows he said: "Just about thirty-one or thirty-two years
ago, I sold newspapers at the Williamsburg Ferry at the
foot of Roosevelt Street . . .

"You know yourself, the boy who likes his teacher
studies the hardest. The boy who is satisfied at home is
more respectful to his parents. It is the whole aim of the
State, so far as it can do it, by law to promote the happi-
ness of its people. Laws are made so that the women and
girls who work may not have to work any longer than
their health and happiness will permit. . . .

"The flag stands for equal opportunity. It left open the
gateway of opportunity irrespective of race, creed or colorj
so that the most humble in the land may rise to greater
things ; it made free institutions.

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"Help one another and keep doing your own work, and
when you go ahead others will follow you, and keep on
doing this work that you ought to do."

In 1917 there was a municipal election. Mayor John
Purroy Mitchel was most reluctant to run for reelection.
He had shown more technical efficiency than anybody who
preceded him in the office, but he had got into many con-
flicts ; made many enemies 5 taken up a line of social inter-
est that was easily used against him 5 and become intensely
excited over the war. One of the authors of this book well
remembers dining with him alone at the Century Associa-
tion shortly before Mitchel made up his mind to yield to
his friends and make the contest once more. The idea of
doing anything except getting out of politics and taking
part in the war depressed him heavily. There was a So-
cialist ticket in the field which, strengthened by anti-war,
feeling, ran second, the regular Democratic ticket winning
easily, with the Mitchel independent ticket a poor third.
On the Democratic ticket Smith was the nominee for
President of the Board of Aldermen. He made plenty of
speeches in the campaign, but none of significance, except
as they illustrate his gift as a popular campaigner, ridi-
culing minor weaknesses of the opposition.

His opponent for President of the Board was Robert
Adamson, a journalist, who had been secretary to Mayor
Gaynor. He was a man of high quality, but not fitted to
cope with Smith in a political contest. Few men are, Adam-
son had the idea, however, of challenging Smith to 5, joint

OPPORTUNITY

debate, which took place before a club in Brooklyn. Dur-
ing his speech Adamson asked, "What are your qualifica-
tions for the office of President of the Board of Alder-
men?"

When it came Smith's time to answer this question, he
said: "My qualifications are twelve years a member of the
New York Legislature and four years Democratic floor
leader there. I was for one year Speaker of the Assembly.
I was six years on its Cities Committee, which revised the
New York City charter. As chairman of the Ways and
Means Committee I personally prepared the State budget.
It cut down expenses by $ 1 5,000,000 as compared with the
last of Governor Hughes's administration..

"I was vice-chairman of the committee which' obtained
the enactment of our existing excellent factory fire pre-
vention laws. I was a member of all the important com-
mittees of the last Constitutional Convention. If there is
any man in the city with the same legislative experience,
let him speak. I will be glad to surrender my nomination
to him and go back to Fulton Market."

It was an indiscreet question that Adamson had asked,
and there was nothing left for him to say when Smith sat
down.

As President of the Board of Aldermen, Smith sat con-
stantly on the Board of Estimate and Apportionment in
which is vested much of the power of the New York City
government. The chairman of this Board is the Mayor.
Inevitably, therefore, Smith received a vivid impression of

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the makeup of John F. Hylan. This impression has played
a part in some of Smith's later decisions and adventures,
the more so because Hylan was in close association with
the powerful publisher of the New York American and
the Evening Journal, William Randolph Hearst.

Smith believed in the honesty of Hylan and in his de-
sire to serve the public. Like Smith himself, and Robert
F. Wagner, who had worked so closely with Smith in
Albany and in the Constitutional Convention, Hylan had
started from poverty. As a young man he had been a
motorman. Like Wagner again, he had by his own ef-
forts prepared himself for the law. During his not im-
portant practice of his profession in Brooklyn he had made
himself member of a citizens' committee, in which he
had been active on various subjects such as taxation and
opposition to large corporations. He had been made a
Judge of the County Court, in which position he was in-
dustrious and honest. Smith had done more effective work
to elect the ticket headed by Hylan than any one else.
He had been a little discussed for the position of mayor
himself, but it had not been offered to him. One of the
reasons that Hylan was favored by Murphy at that time
was that Murphy wished to conciliate Hearst, or at least
to have a candidate whom Hearst would support, and who
represented the important borough of Brooklyn.

When Hylan became mayor he followed a definite pro-
gram. He gave all the appointments to Tammany Hall,
and he took all the Hearst policies. No mayor ever ac-

[H4]

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cepted more thoroughly the list of appointments sent from
Fourteenth Street. For a time, this division was success-
ful. Hylan had a second term, but trouble began when he
asked for a third term. The decision taken by Smith on this
question of the third term for Hylan comes into our story
later. The important thing at the moment is that Smith,
during his contact with Hylan on the Board of Estimate,
made up his mind quite firmly that Hylan was entirely
lacking in intelligence. Whereas Smith approached any
subject with the desire to get all the facts, and all the con-
siderations brought forward by all conflicting interests,
and then to reach some constructive plan based on the most
exact and broad study, Hylan was incapable of such re-
search, or such thought, and tried to solve everything by
the application of some moral rule. Usually this rule took
the form of protecting the people against the interests,
which was well enough as a starting point, had he not
ended, as well as begun, with the statement of the rule.
Possibly Smith's attitude toward Hylan, about which
he kept silent for a time, was never better expressed than
when they both at a later period had to deal with the im-
mensely complicated question of the port facilities of the
harbor of New York. Smith accepted appointment on the
Port Authority from Governor Miller, the Republican
who came in with the tidal wave of 1920. He was thrilled
by the problem. It was exactly the kind of massive subject
he loved. Obviously the very, basis of a constructive solu-
tion had to be some agreement between the two States af-

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fected, New York and New Jersey. It involved difficult
questions of law and difficult questions of business. In the
course of the working out of the plan there was a hearing
in Albany. Smith regretted that Hylan did not attend this
hearing. He had a faint hope that the uncommonly able
explanation of the business advantages of the plan that
had been worked out, as these advantages were presented
by first-class business men, might appeal to Hylan. He
was also excited himself by the excellent manner in which
the legal difficulties and their solutions were put forward
by distinguished lawyers. He made a remarkable speech
at the hearing, and the Legislature adopted the plan, but
Hylan never withdrew what Smith considered his igno-
rant opposition. A year later, when Smith was again gov-
ernor, he attempted to win over the members of the
Board of Estimate and Hylan. He invited them to din-
ner and once again went carefully over the whole project.

Toward the end of the evening the Mayor made an
opportunity to speak to Smith in another room, and what
he said ran like this: "Look here, Al, what's the use of our
fooling with New Jersey in this matter? Let us get up a
Port Authority of our own. If you don't want to go back
to Albany, I'll appoint you commissioner with a big
salary."

Often Smith told this story to his friends: "Think of
it. Here was a magnificent plan, magnificently presented,
from the legal standpoint and from the business stand-

OPPORTUNITY

point, and all the Mayor o£ New York could say on the
subject was to offer me a job."

In later times he has explained his final decision that
Hylan must be eliminated in such words as these: "I do
not think it is fair to the people of New York that a man
with so little intelligence should again be their mayor,
and I personally am ashamed to have the city represented
by him."

During the few months in which Smith was in his new
position of President of the Board of Aldermen, two
things of moderate importance came up.

He had for a long time been interested in all reason-
able proposals for the elimination of the middleman. He
had reached the conclusion, for example, when freight
rates were being widely discussed, that no legislation on
freight rates could have the effect on the cost of living
that might be brought about if the number of middlemen
could be lessened. City markets were initiated by John
Purroy Mitchel, and Henry Moskowitz, one of the au-
thors of this book, was the first market commissioner. As
such, he had ample opportunity to realize how Smith's
mind was working on the problem of distribution. Of
Smith's own part in this movement, F. M. Davenport,
who is now a member of Congress, has told of a statement
made to him by Smith when he was President of the
Board of Aldermen.

"I asked Al Smith when I met him a little while ago
what he had in mind that ought to be worked out at once

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

for his native city. cThe development,' said he immedi-
ately, 'of a system of terminal and public markets. A bet-
ter method for the transportation and distribution of the
food supply. A larger return to the city from millions of
dollars' worth of real estate which the city owns but
leased years ago at too favorable rates. More adequate
dock facilities and the construction of new piers and the
full development of the whole water front. I am also
strongly of the belief that the city should have the power
to purchase, construct, and own and operate any public
utility. How soon and to what extent the power should be
exercised is a question for the future. There are a good
many non-paying public utilities in New York. I am not
keen about getting control of them. But the constitution
will permit us to begin with the utility that earns revenue
sufficient to sustain the bonds, to pay interest, and retire
the bonds at maturity.' "

During his first campaign for the governorship, Smith
gave the following statement of the market policy he had
followed as President of the Board of Aldermen: "Profit-
eering can never be prevented in the traffic of life's neces-
sities so long as the two essential factors, producer and
consumer, are left helpless as they have been in former
years.

"It is my conviction that we should have publicly owned
and controlled terminal markets in our City of New York,
which will insure an open channel from producer to con-
sumer.

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"The proposed program submitted by Jonathan C. Day,
commissioner of public markets, for the establishment of
terminal markets, meets with my hearty approval.

"It is constructive and comprehensive. It will require
time, thought, and energy to complete it. When it is under
way, it will assist the producers of the State no less than
the consumers in the city.

"Like similar systems in foreign cities, it offers full
opportunity to legitimate middlemen and distributors.

"It represents in the field of our economic life my ideal
of democracy in our civic life, government of the people,
by the people, and for the people."

The other matter worth noting illustrated his belief in
freedom. In his first speech as President of the Board of
Aldermen, he said: "I have a keen understanding of the
relationship to the body of the minority and the minor
minority. The people rule negatively as well as affirm-
atively, and a good, healthy, vigorous minority is the
necessary check on great power.

"The rules of the board are intended for the protec-
tion of the rights of the minorities as well as to expedite
the business of the majority. In that spirit, I will interpret
them with a desire to do equal and even-handed justice to
all." He therefore gave the Socialist members of the
Board proper committee assignments. Except in the war
years of 1917 and 1918, he has always had a large So-
cialist vote.

What brought about the first nomination of Smith for

[U9l

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

the governorship was not any sharply defined series of
events. As the time for the Convention approached, it was
clear that the Democrats had nobody to compare with him.
It was not merely his personal popularity in his own city.
Indeed, that particular asset was kept in the background.
It was obvious to the astute leaders that it was better to
take that asset for granted, and to let the opinion of the
upstate Democrats occupy the foreground. Smith's twelve
years in the Legislature had given him more friends and
political admirers throughout the state than were had by
any other New York Democrat. The accumulation of up-
state Democratic opinion, therefore, was allowed the most
prominent place as a force leading to the nomination.
William Church Osborne, distinguished upstate inde-
pendent Democrat, ran against him in the primaries but
without making any headway. He later became one of his
staunch supporters and stumped the state to reelect him
governor in 1920, appearing on the same platform with
him night after night.

By the New York Primary Law, the party may "des-
ignate" a candidate at a convention before the primary.
The Democratic Convention was at Saratoga. As Mrs.
Smith could not be present, it was agreed that the family
should be represented by one of the children. There was
some discussion as to which one should have the pleasure.
Arthur at the time was ten years old. He assured his
mother that if he were permitted to be the visitor he
would "bring home the bacon."

OPPORTUNITY

The boy sat in the gallery and counted every vote.
When the result was known, he dashed to a telephone, and
cried to his mother, "See, I told you I'd bring home the
bacon, and I did. We've got it."

The war did not count in the campaign. Smith was
firmly sympathetic with Wilson's policies and had proven,
as might be expected, an effective speaker in selling Lib-
erty Bonds. In pressing the issue in the campaign, he re-
frained from the more violent forms of war talk, and con-
fined himself to the necessity of standing behind the Presi-
dent for the sake of bringing the war to a quick and suc-
cessful finish.

In this first of his five campaigns for the governorship,
Smith stood on his record and his personality, without
focusing as much on a few special issues as he did in his
later campaigns.

In his first campaign he put out these felicitous words:
"No man owes more to his country than I do. No man
has been more benefited by the free institutions of this
state than I have." The word "free" is worth remem-
bering.

An important development in this campaign was that
Smith began a system he has steadily carried out. The
chairman of his personal campaign was Abram I. Elkus,
a non-Tammany Democrat, former minister to Turkey,
and former counsel for the Factory Investigation Com-
mission. On the committee were outstanding intellectuals
of many types of political opinion. It was the first of-

DP FROM THE CITY STREETS

ficial notice that Smith had reached a point where tKe
fruition of his political ideas required the cooperation less
of ordinary politicians than of men and women who could
fairly be called specialists in progressive citizenship.
There has been in all of his campaigns for the governor-
ship a board of strategy on which both this element and
the practical politician element have been represented.
.The nearest to what could be called a liaison official be-
tween the two groups has been John F. Gilchrist, the pres-
ent Transit Commissioner, his close friend since boyhood,
trusted by Tammany and by the community for his vigor-
ous honesty and fearless courage. The inevitable division
of the work has followed the lines of special ability. The
politicians have done their kind of organizing. The se-
lected citizens have helped Smith to think out and express
policies.

A first-class executive requires many gifts. One of them
is the power to use a large number of minds for purposes
for which they are adapted. A man who, for the first time
in history, was to be five times nominated for and four
times elected governor of the state largest in population
in the union, was to need the faculty of making his selec-
tions both for administrative ability and for advisory co-
operation. His selection of Elkus and his associates serves
as one signpost in his career.

Smith's powers during a campaign were to become every
year better appreciated, but they were already known. He
seldom gets to his feet without a clear conception of the

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idea to be left with his hearer, and of the steps by whicK
it is to be driven in. First he prepares in his own mind his
outline. He makes sure that all desired material is avail-
able. If it happens to be a situation in which it is necessary
to give advance copies to the newspapers, he dictates his
principal themes in advance.

The dictation finished, he takes a sheaf of legal size
envelopes and on each, with a favorite kind of soft lead
pencil, he writes out in his own hand the top head with a
few subheads. Each envelope is devoted to a single topic.
Any document needed in his work will be found in a
convenient file folder, carefully marked for identification.

With the envelopes lying on a desk in front of him as
he addresses his audience, he often covers the dictated
portions which have been given out to the newspapers,
without reading them, but in practically the exact words,
thus again making use of his powerful memory. This
ability to memorize is what actors call exceptionally quick
study. His mixture of preparation and informality is such
as to make sure of the solid impression he seeks and, at the
same time, to leave him easy in repartee and sallies that
may grow out of what other people have said. That he
can be called an eloquent speaker there is no doubt, al-
though it is not precisely easy to say what makes him elo-
quent. His voice is resonant and large but rough. His ges-
tures are free and vigorous, but not especially graceful.
His arms are likely to swing away from somewhere near
his heart. He often bends forward like a perspiring evan-

[153]

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CAMPAIGN SPEECHES IN THE GOVERNOR'S HANDWRITING

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OPPORTUNITY

gelist. One can scarcely be more exact than to say that
these various attributes combine to express his personality
and to carry its charm to the audience while the point of
his speech is being made clear and driven successfully into
their minds.

If he is speaking to a more formal gathering, as before
a Chamber of Commerce or a group of experts, he is more
quiet j he is more complete on the intellectual side of his
speech, and sounds more like the lecturer than the cam-
paigner. A person hearing Smith on one of these occasions,
or meeting him personally, and expecting to see the divert-
ing side that has become famous, is often surprised by his
dignity.

An essential part of his technique in a campaign is that
each speech usually deals with one subject. A few other
topics will be lightly touched upon as called for by the
occasion, but the essence of the speech is that he takes out
one thing of importance and drives that in so thoroughly
that every person of the audience carries it away.

Another essential part is that Smith himself plans a
campaign from the beginning to the end before he goes
into it. He knows how long it requires to cover the state
thoroughly and to end with a proper climax. In following
out his carefully prepared plans, he is capable of resisting
much opposition. Many of the politicians around him be-
come nervous when the Republicans seem to be getting
a good start and the Democrats seem to be doing nothing.
No nervousness of the organization affects Smith. When

[159]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

he is ready, he appears at headquarters and the real cam-
paign begins. Never has the temperature of the organiza-
tion failed to take a big jump when Smith appears on the
scene ready for the fray.

Of course, he has all of the more familiar campaigning
principles, such as talking in each city on a subject ap-
propriate to that town. In Ithaca, the seat of a univer-
sity, he is sure to give one of his more intellectual ad-
dresses. In Rochester or Buffalo, water power is appro-
priate. In Binghamton, where there is a large State hos-
pital, there is sure to be interest in the plans going forward
for improving the State institutions. While Smith is tour*
ing the state, he is not only making speeches, but is busy
gathering information, and he does not do it as it is done
by ordinary party politicians. He hears what is to be said
by the Democrats, but he makes sure also of seeing those
Republicans whom he knows best and who will give him
candidly what is known in their world as the low-down on
the political outlook. When he is through with a cam-
paign, nobody can make a better guess on the outcome in
different regions. In his first campaign for governor, men
around him were talking about a big victory. Smith knew
it was going to be very close. In fact he won by 18,000
before the soldier vote came in. He postponed claiming
victory for a couple of days after the election and after a
special trip to Syracuse to protect the ballot boxes.

It is almost always part of his plans to do the upstate
work first. His next to the last big speech is in Brooklyn

[i 60]

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in the Academy of Music. He takes a special delight in
this occasion. The audience is large j it packs the aisles 5 it
crowds the platform ; it is full of enthusiasm. The tension
of the campaign has reached its height. The one remaining
speech is in Manhattan in some such large auditorium as
Carnegie Hall or the Metropolitan Opera House. That is
always sure to be a hectic climax, but for some reason or
other, the Brooklyn speech seems to exhilarate Smith most
of all. In 1918 he made this Brooklyn Academy speech'
en Friday evening, November i. Destiny was playing into
his hands.

On this same Friday evening, November i, at 6.42
P.M., a Brighton train on the Brooklyn Manhattan Tran-
sit, in charge of a green motorman, was driven beyond
signals. Its three first cars crashed to fragments in the
Malbone Street Tunnel. About ninety people were killed,
and over a hundred were injured.

On that evening, Smith at the Brooklyn Academy of
Music was calling the public service commissions "the
most costly fiasco in the history of our government."

"Politics controlling the appointments has made itself
felt down through the minor employees, and even posi-
tions undoubtedly requiring technical knowledge because
of their character were filled by Republican district
leaders. . . .

"What has Governor Whitman to say about all this?]
Does he really believe it to be entirely unnecessary that

[161]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

he make any explanation? What can be his conception of
this State?"

He went on to speak of Whitman: "In the closing
hours of the campaign his sole reply seems to be that I
am unfit for the office of governor because I was born in
a tenement on the East Side. It is true. In fact, it is one
of the few things he said which is true. I not only admit
it, but I glory in it. That is one of the things that distin-
guishes America from all other countries under the

sun."

The clay after the accident excitement was intense.
Mayor Hylan issued a diatribe against the "interests."
Sitting as a magistrate he issued warrants against high
officials. The District Attorney of Brooklyn, Governor
Whitman, and Public Service Commissioners were all
running around investigating.

The Democrats rushed an advertisement into the
papers. It told of the wreck. It gave the reason: "The
present Public Service Commission is merely a political
machine." It demanded the remedy — to turn out those
who had made it a political machine.

Smith had thought that if he got a plurality of from
50,000 to 55,OOO in Brooklyn he might slip through. He
got about 90,000. Nor was this all destiny did in the
campaign 5 it was not even the main thing. The Repub-
lican strength is upstate. An influenza epidemic in those
Republican strongholds resulted in a dead campaign.
Meetings were prohibited. Some people wore devices on

OPPORTUNITY

their noses as they walked the streets. The vote fell off
as it did not in the big city. With the soldier vote which
came in weeks later his plurality was 14,842.

It was a creditable performance, as the political cards
lay in the State. But it makes a contrast to two years later
when, after showing the people what kind of a governor
he was, he ran over a million votes ahead of the national
ticket. Such a thing had never before occurred. Why did
it happen?

Smith is a man in whose heart gratitude has ever been
a dominating emotion. He was grateful to the friends of
his youth, to Henry Campbell, to Tom Foley, to Mur-
phy, and to all who had lent him a hand on his upward
progress ; but they were all members of his party. It was
his party that had put him into the office of Commissioner
of Jurors ; his party had sent him to the Assembly ; his
party had made him sheriff j his party had made him
President of the Board of Aldermen.

As he rose to take the oath of office on January i, 19195
he glowed with realization that he had not been made
governor of our most populous state by a party. That
party alone, a minority, could not have bestowed upon
him so great honor. That honor, which never before had
been given to a man whose boyhood had been spent along
the wharves, had been bestowed upon him by the people.
As he looked out upon the Assembly Chamber it was
hard for him to keep tears from his eyes. It was packed
with loyal and loving friends. His old mother was there.

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

But mixed in with these warm parts of his own life was
a spectacle that reached behind them, a spectacle of
the people going out to cast a vote in which he seemed to
hear these words: "We trust Al Smith. We know he is a
little Irish Catholic boy from the poorest streets in New
York. We know he had little schooling and has grown up
with friends who had little schooling. We have watched
him. We believe in his honesty. We believe that in the
twelve years of his work in Albany he has had a good
influence on his organization, on the life of the Legisla-
ture, and, through his leadership in the Convention, on
the intellectual prospects of the State. We make him head
of the political life of the State because we love him and
trust him."

Not less clearly did the new Governor feel, as he put
his hand upon the Bible, with his mother by his side, his
wife and five children around him, that a new obligation
had come into his life. There is an expression often used
by the French, noblesse obUgey which means that noble
birth (or indeed any kind of power) brings with it its
obligations. It has been said of Smith that in this crisis
he felt the noblesse oblige of poverty. What was meant
when that expression was used was that as Smith realized
he was the first person with an origin like his to be His
Excellency, the Governor of New York, he declared in
his heart he would not shame that origin, but on the con-
trary would lend it glory.

Chapter VI
IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

WITH Smith in the Governor's chair, a place in our story
is reached to insert a statement of his views on the gen-
eral subject of parties. He says:

"Under our system of government, organized political
parties are essential for ascertaining the will of the ma-
jority of the people. The medium through which that
will is ascertained is a party platform. The party plat-
form is a declaration of political faith and the promise
to the people of performance in political office should a
majority of the people see fit to approve the platform,
endorse the principles of the party, and select its candi-
dates for public office. A platform to compel the confi-
dence of the people must in the first instance be honest.
It must be straightforward, clean-cut, and free from mis-
leading promises susceptible of different interpretations."

In pursuit of this theory, Smith carefully studies every
plank in the party platforms at conventions. Nothing is
slipped in without his knowledge and understanding. At
times he uses his own will against the will of the ma-
jority of the politicians of his party, as when he insisted
in 1920 on the insertion of a plank on housing and, more
recently, joined with Senator Wagner, Franklin Roose-

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

velt, and others in advocating a World Court plank hi the
platform. As a rule his function has been to see that the
planks are sincere and definite, and then that they are
lived up to.

Anybody who wishes to undertake such an exercise can
find this spirit carried out by comparing the Governor's
annual messages to the Legislature with the pledges given
in the platform. When he starts to write a message, the
platform lies in front of him. He checks what he says
with what is in the platform. From this rule he never de-
parts.

We have already indicated that an explanation is needed
for the sudden change in Smith's strength between 1918
and 1920, as well as for its steady march in the seven
following years. If with striking and unusual luck he
was barely elected in 1918, why did he run more than a
million votes ahead of his ticket in 1920? It means, of
course, that he had already shown the people of the
State the kind of governor he wasj what he intended to
do, and his methods of doing it.

It was after Smith had been Governor for two years
that he ran 1,090,929 votes ahead of the presidential
ticket. He was succeeded in office January i, 1921, by
Nathan L. Miller, a distinguished lawyer and judge who
was and is a favorite of big business Republicans. Miller
was looked upon by the financial element as particularly
well equipped for the position and they were pleased with
his work through his term. Two years later in 1922, after

[166]

IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

two years in private life. Smith ran against him again,
receiving 1,9775657 votes, and was elected by the unprec-
edented majority of 385,932. After that came a presi-
dential election in 1924. Smith ran against the very
popular young Colonel Theodore Roosevelt. Coolidge
carried the State by a plurality of 869,262. In spite of
this enormous Republican wave, Smith was elected by
108,561. In 1926 the Republicans put against Smith the
man they considered their strongest possible candidate,
Representative Ogden L. Mills. Again Smith won, by
247,478 votes.

Smith could never have turned New York from the
Republican column into the Democratic if his under-
standing had been confined to the great city. His tri-
umphs would have been impossible had he not compre-
hended the needs of the smaller cities and the agricul-
tural districts as well as he understood those of the
metropolis. It is worth notice that in 1926 Smith's vote
in the city fell off, while it increased in cities and counties
upstate. When he took his seat on January i, 1918, he
knew what he wanted. He started out with a program
which he has pursued with energy up to the present day;
some of it is finished 5 some remains to be finished. It all
hangs together, and the people of New York have de-
cided that it is honest, liberal, and sound. He had a series
of measures of major importance, and he hammered
those measures through the Legislature. When it was
necessary he went with convincing appeals direct to the

[167]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

people. Except for the sessions of 1923 and 1924 both
the Assembly and the Senate have been Republican. In
those two sessions the Senate had a Democratic majority
of one, under the leadership of James J. Walker, the
present mayor of New York. When Smith was reflected
in 1922 Governor Miller sent him a telegram reading,
"Evidently the voters prefer your brand of government
to mine." It was a frank way of putting the result. The
voters had had Miller for two years giving an intelligent
representation of plutocracy. They had to choose and
they chose with emphasis.

When they first made up their minds about the kind
of a governor Al Smith was, attention at Albany was
turning to a considerable extent toward welfare measures
.with which Smith had been associated for many years.
He was able to make clear that the Labor Department
had been crippled by Republican administration. He was
able to liberalize the Labor Law and the Workmen's
Compensation Law. In campaigning against Miller he
took by the horns the question of what economy in State
government means. He denied that it means starvation
for vital departments of the government. He demanded
that the State be looked upon as an instrument for the
service of the people and that economy be measured not
by the amount of money spent but by the amount ob-
tained for the people in return for every dollar expended.
This crowding to the front of the definition of true and
false economy was a representation of Smith's mind. He

[168]

IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

stated the case over and over again, pointing out the
consequences of false economy as applied to the Depart-
ment of Labor, and therefore to the laboring classes. He
showed how the wards in State institutions were suffering
from the previous policy inaugurated during his absence
from Albany. His picture of underpaid attendants and
nurses, insufficient help at the hospitals because no service
could be obtained at the salaries paid, was all the more
convincing because he painted it as the result of his per-
sonal visits to the institutions. "In the hot midsummer
days, I saw patients who had to stay indoors all the time
because there were not enough attendants to take care of
them if they were allowed out for an airing." It was
during his first term that he was successful in abolishing
the direct settlement amendment to the Workmen's Com-
pensation Law. This amendment had been brought about
during the administration of Governor Whitman, and
Smith had already pointed out in the Legislature how
such a clause would take the very life out of the law that
was specifically intended to protect the working man
from the hopeless inferiority of position in which he
would find himself if, in his desperate need, he had to
negotiate with a wealthy corporation and with that cor-
poration's highly skilled lawyers.

From the point of view of Smith's personal career,
political opposition was an asset. As he once said to the
authors of this book: "If the Republicans had not used
partisan obstructive tactics against me, I should have been

[169]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

back in private life long ago." He would have won
prestige if he had been able to rush his whole program
through merely because it was modern, sound, and wise.
On the other hand, if he had finished it up promptly, the
story would have been ended before the public, outside
of New York at any rate, had faced Its religious preju-
dices and decided how far it cared to carry them. By
fighting the Governor partly for the sole purpose of em-
barrassing him, and partly for the protection of privilege,
the Republicans spread his issues so that he had a con-
venient number of them in every one of his campaigns.
For example, the executive budget did not finally pass
the Legislature until the session of 1927. The housing
program, incomplete, passed in 1926. The park program
went through in 1925.

The forty-eight-hour bill for women and children has
always been close to Smith's convictions and affections.
He advocated its passage in his first term at Albany. In
1923 it came up in the Assembly for a vote to discharge
the Committee from further consideration of it — always
a test of how the Legislature will stand — five minutes
before the repeal of the Mullan-Gage bill was voted on.
The legislators, scattered all over the Capitol tense with
the excitement of the Mullan-Gage repeal, could scarcely
be herded together to vote at all on the subject, although
a few minutes later they were all in their seats eager for
the fight on the liquor bill.

Smith fought side by side with the women and girls

IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

who came to Albany for this measure and for the living
wage bill. Court decisions made it hard to continue the
fight for the wage bill. But the forty-eight-hour bill was
different. Opposed by the manufacturers' lobby, an or-
ganization called "Associated Industries, Inc.," it was
bitterly fought from session to session. Women like
Mary Dreier, Mrs. Franklin Roosevelt, Mrs. Howard
Bens, Rose Schneiderman of the Woman's Trade Union
League, were in Albany day after day representing the
Joint Legislative Conference, composed of representa-
tives of the Y.W.C.A., the League of Women Voters,
the Women's City Club, and similar organizations. On
the last night of the session in 1923, in the closing hours,
they discovered a possible chance of bringing the bill on
the floor for a vote, and they believed that if they could
they had the votes to pass it. Mary Dreier came to the
Executive Chamber to see a worn and weary Governor
and to ask that even at that hour he send an emergency
message to the Legislature to enable the bill to come
up. It was nearly midnight ; any minute the Speaker's
gavel might fall, to close the session, but Governor. Smith
gave them the message. It failed.

The opposition to this measure was so bitter that it
even went to the lengths of trumping up charges against
the Commissioner of Labor, Bernard L. Shientag, to
cover its tracks in lobbying against the bill. At the
hearing on the charges, personally conducted by the Gov-
ernor, he brought out a letter which had been sent to the

[171]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

members of the Associated Industries by their lobbyists,
warning them to be on their guard lest the forty-eight-
hour bill pass, and urging redoubled efforts to prevent it.
In 1924, one Republican assemblyman who voted against
it, after promising to vote for it, and whose favorable
vote could have passed the bill, nearly lost his seat at the
next election, and his majority was so dangerously cut
that he never went back after that year.

In 1926 it came near to passage, but was beaten again
by the lobby, in spite of an investigation made under the
auspices of the Women's Division of the Republican State
Committee. A compromise was reached, the Republican
Legislature appointing a commission to consider all labor
legislation and report to the Legislature of 1927. The
compromise bill reported for a forty-eight-hour week in
six full days of work. If the employer gives a half holi-
day his working week may consist of five days of nine
hours and four hours on Saturday. The employer, under
this bill, also has seventy-two hours of overtime, which
he may distribute as he sees fit, but before he starts his
overtime he must inform the Department of Labor. It
was well known in the State that this compromise was
unsatisfactory to the Governor.

Smith has not undertaken to carry out his sweeping
program by combat alone. He chooses controversy only
when other methods fail. Nobody alive goes to the public
more audaciously when it is necessary, but also nobody is
more pleased if measures can be passed by patient con-

IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

ference, even involving give and take, if what is given is
not too essential.

After he took his seat in the executive office the Gov-
ernor did not lose his friendliness and popularity. His
door is wide open. The hours that he spends in his office
are largely given up to visits, not only from Democratic
members of the Assembly, but from Republicans also,
and representatives of the general public.

The same rapid and determined method of finishing
business that was noted when he was Speaker of the As-
sembly expresses itself in disposing of the things that
reach the Governor's desk. In order to keep up his mas-
tery of all the measures with which he deals, it is neces-
sary for him to study documents in the evening, and the
light in his study window is often seen far into the night.

His personal charm and popularity would have sunk
into a minor place long ago had it not been for his dis-
tinction as a sheer public educator. Take, for example, the
year 1925. Off-year elections are usually dull. The Gov-
ernor went before the people with a fundamental prin-
ciple of finance. He debated it with Congressman Mills
at the Economic Club in New York City in the spring
of 1925. He debated it in Buffalo the same year with
Ogden Mills. In addition to the debates he spoke from
one end of the state to the other on the subject of the
principal amendments to the constitution. One of these
amendments enabled the Legislature to expend within
ten years $10,000,000 a year for bond issues to make

[173]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

permanent public improvements. Another of them pro-
vided for the issuing of three hundred million dollars'
worth of bonds with which the State was to assist rail-
roads and local communities in eliminating grade cross-
ings. The third reorganized the State government. The
fourth reorganized the judiciary system.

When the campaign began in 1925, interest concen-
trated particularly on the amendments, because they
promised the hardest fight. The majority of observers
thought Smith at last was undertaking too much, even
for him, so strong was the hostility to some of the amend-
ments, and so easy was it to state the other side in such
phrases as "Pay as you go," and "Let the railroads abolish
their, own grade crossings." After the election the New
York Times y referring to the fact that the Governor him-
self had rid New York City of Mayor Hylan, went on
to say: "Even greater in some respects was the victory of
the Governor in securing the adoption of the constitu-
tional amendments. But for his championship of them,
his speeches, his explanations and defenses, his personal
appeals up and down the state, they would almost cer-
tainly have failed. In particular, the $ioo,cxx),OOO bond
amendment would have been defeated except for his la-
bors and the confidence which the people of the State had
in the soundness of his judgment and his unselfish mo-
tives. The adoption of this amendment, what with the
open and secret opposition to it by the Republicans, con-

[174]

IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

stituted an unexampled tribute to the Governor of the
State."

In this chapter, in which we are merely sketching an
outline of the picture being put before the people by the
Governor of what he looks upon as the proper kind of
State government, it is necessary to give a prominent place
to his appointments. It has not been easy sledding for
him to carry through his theory that the man he wants
is the man he can get the best work out of j but he knows,
and has known for many years, that if he is going to
carry out his plan of showing what can be done by a poor
boy raised to the highest place in the State, he must do
it by being sound on every part of his foundation. His
departments and his various boards, therefore, must be
selected for honesty and efficiency, not for the party label.

The pressure on Smith for offices to be used as political
rewards has been stronger from upstate than from Tam-
many. This was in part because Murphy, in the critical
days of 1918 and 1919, when Smith was getting started,
understood the Governor, sympathized with him, and
did what he could to make things easy for him. The up-
state democracy, on the other hand, was hungry. It had
seldom seen victory. It did not have local offices to feed
it, such as Tammany Hall had in New York City. Local
leaders came to Smith with heart-rending tales about the
needs of their local organizations. Smith always received
their suggestions with urbanity. It was seldom indeed

[175]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

they could suggest anybody fit for an important position,
partly because Democrats were scarce in their part of the
state, but it was wise to let them talk themselves out
and give them the theoretical chance of finding people
up to the Governor's requirements. In the end, the or-
ganization got few appointments.

It got fewer appointments, for example, than the Re-
publican organization got from Theodore Roosevelt.
When Charles Evans Hughes was governor he was less
willing to accept party offerings than Roosevelt was, but
when he went outside the organization and offered jobs
to men eminently successful in private business they
usually would not accept. If Smith has set a higher
standard of appointments than has been seen in the
State before, it has been because of his conception of
what he wants, plus his ability to turn down a politician
without annoying him.

One of the most important positions in the State is
that of Highway Commissioner. "Why in the devil,"
Smith observed as he reached Albany, "shouldn't it be
possible to find somebody to fill this place who will not
build the highways just to please the politicians?" He
set the wheels in motion. The suggestion that appealed
to him most told of a man entirely outside of politics
who had done splendid work for Pershing in France in
building military roads and was just being discharged
from service. After hearing the report on Colonel Fred-
erick Stuart Greene, Smith sent for him. Greene started

IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

out timidly to say something about his lack of knowledge
of politics. "I did not send for you," the Governor broke
in, "to tell me about politics. I sent for you to know
whether or not you could build roads."

Greene went away without any notion whether he was
to be appointed, but pleased with the Governor. Indeed,
he said he had had twenty minutes with the most inter-
esting man he had ever met. Weeks passed by, and he
assumed he was not to have the appointment. He got it,
however, after the Governor had made an investigation.
Immediately after the personal meeting, the Governor
merely said: "He is a likely person." When he had made
up his mind he telephoned to the adviser who had sug-
gested Greene and said: "Give me the front name of that
man Greene. I want to send it in." From that day to this,
Greene has been a thorn in the flesh of the office seekers.
They have never ceased going to the Governor and com-
plaining that they can get nothing from the Highway
Commis.sioner. The Governor takes a pathetic and comic
attitude. "What can I do?" he asks. "I speak to him, but
he pays no attention to what I say." At another time he
will say to a complaining politician: "Of course, Greene
is a in May, but think what an angel he is in No-
vember." The politician only half understands what he
means. He means, of course, that when there is no elec-
tion on, the politicians complain of the fact that Greene
will not let them get their feet in the trough, but that
when the large voting public is to be consulted the honest

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.UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

and efficient work of the Highway Department takes its
place among the causes of victory. There had been plenty
of scandal in the department under some previous admin-
istrations. Smith's work in the Legislature had prepared
him to understand the scandals. He knew roads had been
built often for no other purpose than to satisfy powerful
local leaders. The Highway Department was to the State
what the police department had been to New York City,
and not a few Democratic administrations in the city had
been wrecked by the police department.

One of the most powerful Democratic leaders in the
state was set upon getting his choice into the Highway
Department to fill a vacant post of second deputy. The
law requires certain qualifications for that post. The man
he recommended was a jeweler. <rWhat does he know
about roads?" asked the Governor. It turned out that he
knew nothing. "Give me another name," said Smith. The
next name was a bookkeeper. "I'll put that fellow in the
banking department where he can be useful and get an
opportunity for a future, but he does not know anything
about roads. Put a man where his experience and connec-
tion will help him if you are really interested in him.
What does a bookkeeper know about the difference be-
tween concrete and cement?" "Governor," said the disap-
pointed leader, "you don't want to help the Democratic
party. I want to place these men. They are party work-
ers." This aroused the Governor. Rising in his chair he
said: "You don't want to place these men. You want that

IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

particular place in the Highway Department. I have been
in your town often. I have walked on its sidewalks and
I have seen the folks look just like those I know on
Second and Third Avenues in New York. They ought to
be just as good Democrats, but when the election returns
come in you can't find them. There has been some cheat-
ing somewhere.33 Smith referred to the deals of local
Democrats with local Republicans, especially on highway
contracts. He stopped, refraining from the obvious addi-
tion that his popularity has helped the local Democratic
tickets as that of no other Democrat in the history of
the State.

Greene's ability to offend regular politicians has sev-
eral branches. It is partly that his office has more patron-
age than any other. It is partly that he insists on appoint-
ments for efficiency and honesty only. Greene does not
bother himself with the kind of tact that Smith shows.
It is partly that he promptly got rid of extra men who
were not needed. Although he saved hundreds of thou-
sands of dollars, in the game of politics it is a capital
crime to diminish the number of offices. What he has
accomplished every motorist and every citizen must
know. He has built concrete roads. He has abandoned
the good old policy which was known as "More miles,
more votes," the expression covering the policy of build-
ing cheap roads that lack durability, and putting the roads
where they will do the most political good. Greene has
established a new highway map, which locates roads based

[179]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

upon the needs of the State, and secured its adoption by
the Legislature.

One of the first results of the Governor's efforts to
consolidate at least some of the State departments while
waiting for constitutional amendments to pass, was the
setting up of the Department of Public Works in 1925
and putting into it the canals, the highways, and the
supervision of public buildings. Greene was eminently
fitted to do this job and he was put at the head of the
new department. In the first year he saved $750,000. By
this merger the canals are now administered with the as-
sistance of civil service engineering experts who have
taken the place of political appointees.

How did the Governor select, as State Architect, Sulli-
van W. Jones? He asked for and received a list of several
names suggested by prominent members of the Amer-
ican Institute of Architects. Jones, whose name was on
it, had built up a good reputation, especially in the field
of estimating costs and testing jobs and materials. More-
over, he had worked on the State Education Building in
Albany. "I like his front name," said the Governor, "and
he certainly seems to have the goods. Let me size him
up." So he had him come to see him, liked his "get-up,"
and made the appointment. Before receiving the list of
names, he had never heard of him. Politicians promptly
came around complaining that Jones was not a Democrat.
He had voted the Farmer-Labor ticket. Smith replied:
"I did not ask what his politics were. I want an archi-

[i 80]

IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

tect." Jones has been of assistance to the Governor in his
bond issue campaigns and in the cooperation he has given
in rebuilding the State institutions.

The Labor Department, when Smith first took office,
was administered by a commission of five members. SmitH
had one vacancy to fill immediately. He appointed Fran-
ces Perkins, a well-known worker in the field of labor leg-
islation, whom he had known as an investigator in the days
of the Factory Commission. He later named Bernard L.
Shientag, who had been assistant counsel in the investiga-
tion, to be counsel to the department. During Governor
Miller's term of office, the Republicans, made uneasy by
the manufacturers' lobby, who wanted to curtail the ac-
tivities of the department, and who were opposed to a
woman of Miss Perkins' pronounced sympathy with the
workers, took the proposed reorganization of the depart-
ment as outlined in the Reconstruction Commission's re-
port and enacted it into law. This abolished the commis-
sion of five at the head of the department and substituted
a single commissioner at the head, with an Industrial
Board of three members to administer the Workmen's
Compensation Law and the Factory Code.

When Smith returned to office in 1923 he appointed
Shientag Industrial Commissioner and Miss Perkins a
member of the Industrial Board. She is now chairman
of the Board, which has been enlarged to five members.
Shientag is a real authority on labor laws. On account of
the appointment of so efficient and thoroughly informed

[181]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

a commissioner, cases under the Workmen's Compensa-
tion Act began to be more speedily disposed of. The
State Insurance Fund was strengthened. Various bureaus,
like that of the Bureau of Women in Industry, the Bu-
reau of Industrial Hygiene, and others, have benefited.
Every year some new form of attack was made on the
Labor Department, culminating in a series of charges
made against Shientag by Associated Industries. In the
end the charges were publicly withdrawn, after a hearing
lasting two days, in which the Governor himself acted as
the investigator.

Smith was interested not only in labor laws as they
might exist at any particular moment, but also in strength-
ening that arm of the government which is to be perma-
nently engaged in enforcing such laws. Private interests
have two ways of defeating public policies. The first is
an attempt to prevent the passage of laws which may limit
some private enterprise in order to promote the public
welfare. When a law of this kind does pass, the next step
is to paralyze the enforcing arm and thus make a dead
letter of the kw. Labor laws are not worth the paper
they are written on unless they are properly administered,
fjovernor Smith was constantly behind the fight to keep
the enforcing agency for labor laws effective and to de-
feat attempts to weaken the laws themselves.

Smith did not stop observing and learning during the
two years he was in business in New York City. Imme-
diately after that experience he began making his reports

IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

to the Legislature and to the people as though he were
the president of a corporation, the legislators were di-
rectors, and the people were stockholders. It was also
after his business experience that he began emphasizing
the waste that lay in the fact that the State had been
paying huge rentals instead of being housed in its own
buildings. He has from time to time shown much interest
in recalling that he himself auctioned off the old arsenal
at Seventh Avenue, which was located in the cloak and
suit district, and was very valuable. For this building he
obtained $1,300,000, and proceeded to build a new arsenal
in South Brooklyn, adjoining the Federal Supply Base,
because from that point the State receives its supplies
from the Federal government, and from that point they
can be distributed in carload lots at considerably less cost.

At the head of the State Tax Department the Gov-
ernor put an old friend, whom we met in a previous chap-
ter, as a connecting link between the experts and the or-
ganization in the conduct of campaigns. This was John F.
Gilchrist. As his associates the Governor appointed ex-
perts, who included Mark Graves, who had been director
of the Budget Bureau under Governor Miller, and John
J. Merrill, an expert on taxation.

George V. McLaughlin, superintendent of banks, origi-
nally appointed to that office by Smith, was retained by
both Miller and Smith. Ultimately Smith turned him
over to Mayor Walker to put into the unspeakably diffi-
cult and important post of Police Commissioner of New

[183]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

York City. Nobody in a great many years has made as
good an impression in the office of Police Commissioner
as McLaughlin made. When Smith let him leave Albany
for this important work he selected as his successor Frank
H. Warder, who had been McLaughlin's first deputy,
and had been recommended to the Governor by Mc-
Laughlin to succeed him.

For Superintendent of State Police he appointed Major
John A. Warner. At that time he knew little about him
and appointed him on the recommendation of the out-
going superintendent, Major Chandler, who had organ-
ized the State Police. Later on, the acquaintance with
Warner resulted in the Major's marrying the Governor's
daughter Emily.

As Conservation Commissioner during his first term, he
retained John B. Pratt, the Republican already in office.
Governor Miller let Mr. Pratt go, and appointed another
Republican, Alexander MacDonald, who has been re-
tained by Governor Smith throughout all his terms. He
also has retained in office Frank B. Utter, head of the
Division of Standards and Purchase. This bureau super-
vises and makes all purchases for State institutions. Non-
partisan philanthropic agencies are all agreed on, Mr.
Utter's fitness.

On the Civil Service Commission he appointed Mrs.
Charles Bennett Smith and Colonel William Gorham
Rice, both known as good friends of the civil service
law.

IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

When Commissioner Biggs of the State Department
of Health died, Smith appointed his first deputy, Dr.
Matthias F. Nicoll, to succeed him.

As his own secretary he appointed George B. Graves,
who had been in the State service thirty-two years. Under
the reorganization of the State government, Graves is
now called Assistant to the Governor. Before Graves be-
came secretary to Smith the post was filled by George
Van Namee, now on the Public Service Commission. At a
birthday dinner to his secretary, Smith said: "The State
service is becoming specialized and the day is coming
when political appointment where some one gets a job
and some one else has to do the work for him is done
away with. Otherwise we might just as well stop talking
about this open avenue of opportunity. I don't like to be
called cold-blooded about it but that is what is going to
happen."

With his arm around his secretary's shoulder the Gov-
ernor handed him a gold watch and chain, a gift of his
friends, with the words: "George, it is with the best
wishes of all the fellows who are looking at you."

After reviewing Graves's thirty-five years of service
to the State, the Governor added: "The tune of 'Albany,
dear Albany,' certainly sounds good to me. It has been
Albany, dear Albany to me, and I see it is on the same
page of the song book with cAuld Lang Syne.' "

He also said: "We have in public life the quiet unas-
suming fellows who do the real work and grind out the

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

State's business day after day, and we have the fellows
who go out and talk about it. George Graves is one of
the fellows who quietly do the State's business."

In administering the State institutions, the Governor
has been determined to keep their management free from
political influence. As head of the Department of Men-
tal Hygiene he chose first Dr. Floyd S. Haviland and
as his successor, Dr. Frederick W. Parsons, both expert
psychiatrists. While the department was under a triple-
headed commission, he appointed Harriet May Mills as
a member of it. As prison commissioners he had chosen
men well known in prison administration.

Appointments such as these enabled him to say of a
famous issue to be taken up in Chapter IX: "It is a well-
known fact that I have made all of my appointments to
public office on the basis of merit and have never asked
any man about his religious belief.

"In the first month of this year, there gathered in the
Capitol at Albany, the first governor's cabinet that ever
sat in the State. It was composed under my appointment
of one Catholic, thirteen Protestants, and one Jew."

Smith's appointment of General William N. Haskell
as Major General of the National Guard was hailed by
the press and the army as most fitting. His work in Rus-
sia as the head of the Hoover Relief Expedition during
the famine was noteworthy.

There is a never-ceasing fire of complaint against Rob-
ert Moses, secretary of state. Smith pointed out tactfully.

[186]

IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

when he made the appointment, that he had been ac-
cepting help from Moses for years without any return,
and it would be most ungrateful to continue this policy.
He therefore intended to regularize the relation by mak-
ing him Secretary of State. The real reason was that he
was the right man for the post, but Smith gave the kind
of a reply the politicians could understand.

No better example can be desired of the non-partisan
basis of government as understood and carried out by the
Governor than the list of members of the Reconstruction
Commission. It was on January 20, 1919, about three
weeks after he took office for the first time, that he an-
nounced his appointment of such a commission to deal
with a situation left by the war and also with the more
permanent form of reconstruction made necessary by the
Constitutional Convention. The names follow:

Abram I. Elkus, of New York City, who had served as
counsel to the New York State Factory Investigating Commis-
sion; ambassador to Turkey, and a member of the State Board
of Regents, lawyer.

Charles H. Sabin, president of the Guaranty Trust Company
of New York City.

Bernard M. Baruch, of New York City, chairman of the
Federal War Industries Board.

Gerrit Y. Lansing, of Albany, well-known banker and
Federal fuel administrator for Albany County.

John Alan Hamilton, president of the Legal Aid Bureau of
Buffalo, a Republican.

Dr. Felix Adler, leader of the New [York Society for Ethical

[187]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

Culture and well known generally throughout the country for
his patriotic and civic activities.

Charles P. Steinmetz of the General Electric Company of
Schenectady, inventor and electric expert, a Socialist.

John G. Agar, active in war work, and a prominent lawyer
of New York City.

William M. I. Olcott, former district attorney of New York
County, a Republican.

Arthur Williams, of the New York Edison Company of New
[York City, and Federal food comptroller of New York, also
a Republican.

Michael Friedsam, president of B. Altman & Company of
New York City, a Republican.

John C. McCall, secretary of the New York Life Insurance
Company of New York City.

Thomas J. Quinn, president of the Bronx National Bank,
New York City.

Alfred J. Johnson, city chamberlain of New York City.

Carleton A. Chase, prominent business man of Syracuse, New
.York, a Republican.

Dr. Henry Dwight Chapin, well-known physician of New
York City, and especially interested in child welfare work.

Mortimer L. Schiff, son of Jacob H. Schiff, banker and
philanthropist, of New York City, a Republican.

Mrs. Sarah A. Conboy, and Peter A. Brady, of New York
City, representing the State Federation of Labor.

Addison B. Colvin, of Glens Falls, former Republican state
treasurer, president of the Glens Falls Trust Company, and
federal coal administrator for central New York.

Mrs. Walter W. Steele of Buffalo, prominent war worker of
western New York.

Mrs. Harry Hastings, of New York City, of the Executive
Committee of the Democratic County Committee of New York.

[188]

IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

Edward F. Boyle, judge of the Municipal Court of New
City and now of the Children's Court.

Henry Evans, of New York City, president of the Continental
Fire Insurance Company.

M. Samuel Stern, member for many years of the Board of
Education of New York City.

Mrs. Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler, of Barrytown, Dutchess
County, wife of former Lieutenant-Governor Chanler.

Thomas V. Patterson, of Brooklyn, president of the Lehigh &
Scranton Coal Company, and member of the New York Produce
Exchange and the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce.

Mrs. William H. Good, of New York City, former president
of the Civitas Club and active in charitable and civic organi-
zations, and a member of the National League for Women's
Service.

Norman E. Mack, of Buffalo, publisher of the Buffalo Times
and the Democratic national committeeman from this State.

J. N. Beckley, prominent citizen of Rochester, Republican.

Otto B. Schulhof, prominent manufacturer of New Yorlc
City.

V. Everit Macy, of Westchester, chairman of the Ship Build-
ing Labor Adjustment Board and chairman of the Executive
Committee of the National Civic Federation, a Republican.

Richard S. Newcombe, prominent member of the bar and
District Attorney of Queens County.

S. J. Lowell, of Fredonia, president of the New York State
Grange, Republican.

Alfred E. Marling, of New York City, president of the
Chamber of Commerce of New Jfork State, a Republican.

The Governor's adherence to the civil service law is
frequently referred to by that non-partisan civic prgani-

[189]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

zation, which specializes in the promotion and in the
proper administration of this law — the Civil Service Re-
form Association.

In the 1925 Report is this: "Governor Smith has con-
tinued to maintain the high standard with respect to the
application of the merit system in the State Civil Service
for which we have had occasion in the past to praise him.
He has again more than justified that praise. This year
he vetoed seven bills, passed by the Legislature, which
were opposed by the Association, and he signed but one
relatively unimportant bill which had our opposition. By
his support of the State Civil Service Commission he has
enabled that body to resist the attempts made to weaken
the proper administration of the law. Early this year
great pressure was brought to bear upon the Governor to
displace the Hon. William Gorham Rice, a member of
the State Civil Service Commission, whose term was
about to expire. Mr. Rice was originally appointed by
Governor Whitman in 1925 and has served continuously
through the first term of Governor Smith, and in spite
of opposition the Governor has now reappointed him for
six years more. His long experience and his traits of
sterling character well fit him for his position."

From the 1926 Report: "During the past year Gov-
ernor Smith has in general continued his excellent record
in support of the merit system by upholding and sup-
porting the State Civil Service Commission in its disap-
proval of ill-advised applications made by officials of the

[190]

IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

State government for unwarranted suspension of the rules'-
requiring competitive examinations. The State Commis-
sion has had before it many applications for exemption
of positions in the State service and in the services of
various cities of the State. We commend the Commission
for its disapproval of most of them and particularly for
its disapproval of a number of improper requests for
exemptions in the service of the City of New York."

The 1927 Report says: "The State Civil Service Com-
mission ... in all of its work has the cordial and thor-
ough support and cooperation of Governor Smith."

To a letter of Judge Ordway, president of the Civil
Service Reform Association, sent to both candidates dur-
ing the 1926 campaign, the Governor replied: "As to
your first question, my record as Governor is the best
answer I can make, and as long as I remain Governor I
shall adhere to the merit principle in the Gvil Service of
New York State."

In 1922 when he ran against Miller, the Governor, in
reply to Judge Ordway, said: "1 stand today as I did
through my administration as Governor for the extension
of the merit system in the Civil Service of our State, and
I am opposed to exemptions by legislative enactment.
During my incumbency as Governor, I suggested and
signed the so-called 'inverse order bill' which, I believe,
had a good deal to do with preventing removals for
purely political reasons. . . .

"If elected I will certainly continue any policy that

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

will have for its ultimate purpose the extension of the
merit system."

It should long ago have become clear that the basic
reason for Smith's independence is his determination to
have the job well done. A secondary reason is that he
understands politics better than the minor politicians and
has become their natural leader. They will never realize
as he does just what the powers of an organization are
on Election Day, and what are the limits of its powers. In
a close election the machine may affect the result, and
most of the time it determines the nominations. As a
rule, the election itself depends upon a candidate's ac-
tual strength with the voters, the vast majority of whom
are not interested in the routine of party organization.
[The slight interest they take in constructive policies is
shown by what is the fact, at least in the east, that they
have not used the direct primaries to weaken boss con-
trol. Smith knows that elections depend not upon pat-
ronage, but upon policies. His unprecedented majorities
have come about through his policies, his constructive
programs, and his ability to present programs to the gen-
eral public. Smith himself once pointed out to the authors
of this book that Grover Cleveland became a national
figure because the idea got around the country that he
was independent of everybody.

In the general impression made by Smith as Governor
belongs the fundamental liberalism associated with his
veto of the notorious Lusk bills. At the opening of the

[192]

IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

session in the second year of his first term, the Repub-
lican Legislature undertook to throw out of their seats
five Socialist Assemblymen who had been elected from
New York City. They were thrown out first, and tried
afterward, on charges of being hostile to our form of
government, advocating principles adverse to our insti-
tutions, and designed to overthrow them by force. The
Bar Association of New York City protested. Governor
Smith felt that although it was primarily the business of
the Legislature it was necessary for him to interfere. He
gave out a statement which contained the following lan-
guage: "Although I am unalterably opposed to the fun-
damental principles of the Socialist party, it is inconceiv-
able that a majority party duly constituted and legally
organized, should be deprived of its right to expression
so long as it has honestly, by lawful methods of educa-
tion and propaganda, succeeded in securing representa-
tion, unless the chosen representatives are unfit as indi-
viduals.

"It is true that the Assembly has arbitrary power to
determine the qualifications of its membership ; but where
arbitrary power exists it should be exercised with care and
discretion because from it there is no appeal. . . .

"Our faith in American democracy is confirmed not
only by its results, but by its methods and organs of free
expression. They are the safeguards against revolution.
To discard the methods of representative government
leads to the misdeed of the very extremists we denounce

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

— and serves to increase the number of the enemies of
orderly free government."

Former Governor Hughes was one of those who took
a leading part against this expression of war hysteria,
as did many civic organizations and organs of liberal
opinion. The trial went on for months. It resulted finally
in condemning the five Assemblymen. There was ap-
pointed a joint legislative committee under the chairman-
ship of Senator Lusk to investigate revolutionary radical-
ism. It used detectives and worked feverishly to unearth
conspiracies of revolutionary character. The result was
grotesque. Nevertheless, the Lusk reports are the quarry
from which every society organized to limit freedom
of opinion obtains its raw material. The only result ac-
complished was to get together a list of names, from
Jane Addams down, representing every shade of liberal-
ism, pacifism, moderate radicalism, and what small ele-
ment of genuine radicalism could be found. The Com-
mittee recommended legislation to silence free speech j to
test the loyalty of school teachers -y to require registration
of private schools 5 and to regulate school courses so as to
prevent the young from being turned into reds or pinks.
Three such bills were passed. The Governor vetoed them.
In his veto of the bill dealing with prosecution for crimi-
nal anarchy and providing special facilities for its detec-
tion he said: "The traditional abhorrence of a free peo-
ple of all kinds of spies and secret police is valid and
justified and calls for the disapproval of this measure."

[194]

IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

In vetoing the bill regarding the loyalty test for teach-
ers he said: "Opposition to any presently established in-
stitution, no matter how intelligent, conscientious or dis-
interested this opposition might be, would be sufficient to
disqualify the teacher. Every teacher would be at the
mercy of his colleagues, his pupils, and their parents, and
any work or act of the teacher might be held by the Com-
missioner to indicate an attitude hostile to some of the
institutions of the United States or of the State.

"The bill unjustly discriminates against teachers as a
class. It deprives teachers of their right to freedom of
thought, it limits the teaching staff of the public schools
to those only who lack the courage or the mind to exer-
cise their legal right to just criticism of existing institu-
tions. The bill confers upon the Commissioner of Edu-
cation a power of interference with freedom of opinion
which strikes at the foundations of democratic education."

In his veto of the bill supervising the schools and
school courses to prevent undesirable doctrines, he used
these words: "The clash of conflicting opinions, from
which progress arises more than from any other source,
would be abolished by law 5 tolerance and intellectual
freedom destroyed and an intellectual autocracy imposed
upon the people. The destruction of the German Empire,
through the blind inability of its people to understand
the spirit of free institutions, is a striking example of the
ruin that may ensue from forcing into a narrow govern-
mental mold the processes of education. The proponents

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of these bills urge that they are essential to the protec-
tion of the community against radical opinion. I might
rest upon the saying of Benjamin Franklin that 'They
that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little tempo-
rary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.' But I go
further — the safety of this government and its institu-
tions rests upon the reasoned and devoted loyalty of its
people. It does not need for its defense a system of intel-
lectual tyranny which, in the endeavor to choke error by
force, must of necessity crush truth as well."

While he was preparing his statement to accompany
these vetoes he received, according to his custom, a written
suggestion from a friend. This suggestion contained quo-
tations from various writers on democracy, ranging from
Jefferson to de Tocqueville. Smith asked somebody near
him who de Tocqueville was, and learned that he was
one of the earliest foreign commentators on American in-
stitutions. He sent an oral message back to his friend in
New York City saying: "I know who Thomas Jefferson
is, and I may be supposed to know who Benjamin Frank-
lin isj but if I quote de Tocqueville, everybody will say
Al Smith never wrote that. He never heard of de
Tocqueville."

Nor did he stop with the veto of the bills. On Sep-
tember 1 6, 1920, he issued a proclamation calling for
special elections in the five Assembly districts, that would
otherwise be left unrepresented at the extraordinary ses-
sion of the Legislature which he had called for housing

IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

relief. "I am unable," he said, "to bring myself to the
undemocratic way of thinking that five large Assembly
districts, containing a population of approximately two
hundred and fifty thousand people in the counties wherein
the unrepresented Assembly districts lie, and vitally af-
fected by the housing conditions, should be without rep-
resentation in the Assembly."

Still another blow at the war spirit was shown when
in 1922 he pardoned Jim Larkin, convicted during the
war under the criminal anarchy statute of the State.
Larkin's revolutionary radicalism was abhorrent to him.
^Toward his opinions, which tended to weaken the power
of our government in its war against her enemy, he
shared the verdict of the courts and juries. But the war
had been over for three years, and he recognized that
Larkin was a political prisoner. Later, for the same rea-
sons, he pardoned the remaining political prisoners held
by the State.

During the 1922 campaign, before he had announced
his intention about Larkin, who happened to be a Sinn
Feiner, the Governor was called upon by a group of
members of that organization. One of them, a woman
with excited, piercing black eyes, obviously a fanatic, said
to him, "Governor, we came to ask you to do justice to
Jim Larkin."

The Governor understands the Irish temperament. He
broke in with stern emphasis. "Hold on there. You did

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not come for justice. Larkin got that in the court. You
came for mercy."

Somewhat taken aback, the woman said, "Well, mercy,
if you take it that way. Will you promise to pardon him
if you are elected?"

The Governor replied, "This is not a fair request to
make to a man running for office. The constitution ex-
pressly forbids my making a promise to any one. I have
never in my whole life made a promise before election.
I do not act that way."

The group looked crestfallen. The Governor felt their
disappointment and added, "I'll promise you this. I
promise you that if I am elected I will give the Larkin
case the most careful consideration I am capable of."

They shook hands with the Governor and went away
encouraged.

It was on June 8, 1925, that the Supreme Court of the
United States decided the guilt of Benjamin Gitlow.
Justice Holmes gave the dissenting opinion which was
concurred in by Justice Brandeis. Justice Holmes held
that the right of free speech should not be checked un-
less the words used create a clear and pressing danger.
Smith's pardon of Gitlow was shortly after the Supreme
Court had confirmed the conviction and sentence. The Jim
Larkin case was in substance the same.

It was during the first term of the Governor that
Woodrow Wilson in February, 1919, in a written note,
only recently made public, said: "I hope and believe that

IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

you will not be disappointed in Governor Smith. He is a
man who has stood quite apart in a great many ways, and
I believe he feels in an unusual degree the impulses and
compulsions of the changed order of the nation's and the
world's affairs."

If the Governor is to be measured in the main by his
policies, his ability to see them through, and his talent
for educating the people of the State, we are not to over-
look his gifts as the sheer executive. These gifts are im-
pressed on anybody who sees him at work. He is singu-
larly accessible, but that does not mean waste of time.
His telephone conversations are likely to be cut off
sharply. They may consist of "Yes. No. How are you?
See you later." Sometimes he will be impatiently pacing
the floor, his keen blue eyes flashing. At another moment
he will be leaning back in his chair with these same eyes
looking veiled and dull, but even then nothing escapes
him. After the tensest moment he is likely to burst into a
song, a jingle of the day, accompanying this song with

a jig-

These much-talked-of steel-blue eyes do their glinting
also in his inside office when he is concentrated upon some
document, possibly on the law, possibly on statistics.
Here, again, the end of a document is likely to be sig-
naled to those in the outer office by a baritone voice and
an old Irish tune like <cKathleen Mavourneen" or "Tim
Toolin," or again by some trifle running its brief life at
the moment.

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His secretary and other assistants never know when the
loud baritone shout is to come from the inner office:
"George! Bobbie! Jim!" When they run to the chief it
may be a law book that is wanted, a report, a letter 5 but
they are attentive, all the time, for they know the grind
goes on fast through the long day. He never uses a push
button on his desk. Back of his desk is what he calls his
own filing system. It is a series of wooden trays in each
of which he deposits letters, reports, documents, clip-
pings, in accordance with a system of his own and to
which he alone knows the key. On his desk is a special
folder which contains those letters or memoranda to
which he wishes to give longer consideration, or on which
he wishes to consult some adviser.

In that inner office there is system. There is efficiency.
But there is no chill. Friendliness, sociability, spontaneity,
and charm are not lost in the mill of labor.

It is probable that no other governor has personally
answered so many letters. These, of course, add seriously
to the volume of work, and there is no eight-hour day
for him, although he is careful about his subordinates.
The hours he spends at his office are not less than six, the
rest of his work being done at home. He takes a light
lunch in his inside office, if he eats at all during the day,
and about six o'clock he goes home for his dinner. In the
Executive Mansion he has many of his important con-
ferences.

For the last three years there has been a new feature

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IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

in the lighter background of his existence. His children
growing up have taken advantage of that momentous new
invention, the moving picture. They have movies in the
Executive Mansion and they invite their friends. The
Governor's taste for the drama has not changed. He still
likes comedy rather than tragedy. Charlie Chaplin is a
pet of his. So are Douglas Fairbanks and Harold Lloyd,
and even the cross-eyed comedians.

Every evening immediately after dinner he goes out
to visit his menagerie. He retains all his old fondness for
animals. While the boys were little they had two ponies
in Albany which they have long since outgrown. The
Governor thought it important that they learn to care
for their pets themselves and checked up on them care-
fully. When still living in Oliver Street, he was happy
when he was first able to buy a goat carriage and two
goats for the children. A parrot and Cassar, the Great
Dane, made the transition to Albany with him in 1919.
The menagerie has contained at various times turkeys, a
goat, a tiger cub, an eagle, a fox, and bear cubs. Nowa-
days the tennis court is turned into well-constructed
cages and outdoor runways. He has six dogs, with Thomas
Jefferson, his Great Dane, at the head. There are three
monkeys — his especial delight — some pheasants, a mother
raccoon with five baby raccoons, rabbits, an elk, a doe and
a fawn, to say nothing of parrots and half a dozen other
birds. He feeds them all personally with sugar, bananas,
and fruit and is thoroughly happy whenever he can spend

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

an hour with his animal friends at home or at the Cen-
tral Park menagerie in New York. He is always interested
in stories about animals.

In these days the relation of an executive to the press
is important. The Governor is frank with newspaper men.
He tells them much that is not for publication. He feels
at home with them and they with him. His humorously
elastic temperament, mixed in with his extraordinary
control of facts and principles, is something these trained
observers like and admire.

Original with him is a series of conferences which he
initiated about four years ago. At first they were arranged
to discuss and explain some issue he was fighting out with
the Legislature, such as income tax reduction, housing,
reorganization, the executive budget, appropriations, bond
issues, or water power. To such a conference he invites
publishers and editors from all of the metropolitan news-
papers to lay before them his program and ask for ques-
tions, objections, and arguments.

These meetings have now become regular annual af-
fairs, and to the meeting with the metropolitan press he
has added another annual dinner, to which are invited
publishers and editors from the provincial press. Frank
Munsey, owner of the New York Sun and New York
Herald, was an example of what is accomplished by these
meetings. Although a staunch Republican, he became one
of the most determined supporters of Smith. He believed
that few men of equipment go into public life, and he

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IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

rejoiced to see a first-class talent and character at the
head of his own State. There are many who feel that
Munsey's support of Smith's bond-issue plans was one of
the strongest elements in putting them through success-
fully.

The Governor has plenty of dignity, but he is too con-
fident of himself and too naturally at ease to let dignity
degenerate into stiffness. He never hesitates to go to see
an editor if he believes the editor has made a mistake.
In this respect he treats the editor as he treats other
forces. William J. Schieffelin, head of the Citizens'
Union, and his family were lunching together one day
when the butler announced the Governor was in the sit-
ting-room. He believed the Citizens' Union was wrong
on a major matter and he had come to talk it over.

At hearings the Governor is often frankly bored. He
has a marked distaste for pretense. He practically always
knows the case before him down to the bottom, and he
feels that the lawyers presenting opposite sides are more
often tying themselves up in technicalities than they are
seeking for the gist of the matter. He breaks in fre-
quently with questions. Often he sums up. Not infre-
quently he rises and leaves the room, after telling the
speakers what he looks upon as the deciding point and
adding, "If you have any more on that, you can send it
to me."

Those who come to the Executive Chamber on human
errands do well to trust to their own statements, and not

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UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

tiring lawyers, if what they wish is executive clemency.
The Governor has been strikingly ready to meet those
innocent victims, the wives, children and parents of pris-
oners. Many a harrowing experience has he endured from
efforts on their account. He is always eager to save them
the money they can ill afford to pay. He not infrequently
says to the wife or sister: "You can get more for him
than any lawyers you may hire. Don't turn into lawyers5
fees the money you need for your family."

On one occasion he made a special trip to New York
to inspect personally the scene of a gang murder to clear
up in his own mind a piece of testimony. "There is only
one doubtful point in this case," he said. "It rests on the
testimony of the police officer who described the escape
of the murderer. On the face of the testimony, I do not
believe the fleeing man could have done all the things the
policeman said he did, in the limited time he was under
observation." At the scene of the murder he went through
all the movements described by the policeman including
one which involved jumping from a window, and found
that the time mentioned by the officer was ample. He re-
turned to Albany that night and on the next day refused
the application for clemency.

To visiting delegates he is as pointed in his comments
as he is at hearings. In his private office one day was a
group of left wing feminist members of the Women's
Party who came to protest against special social legislation
for women. A favorite word of theirs was equality. Smith

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IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

said to them: "It is not a question of equality. I have
been fighting for these laws upstairs and down here on
the second floor because women have different physical
needs. Don't blame me. If you want to blame anybody,
blame God. You will never turn me against these pro-
tective laws. They have been passed in the interest of
public health to protect members of the race. Judges have
declared them constitutional. Preserving public health is
a good public policy. Read what the doctors and scientists
have said on this subject. I have been studying it for more
than fifteen years. I believe in equality, but I cannot
nurse a baby." There was no lack of courtesy but there
was a certain amount of brusqueness, as there is likely to
be when Smith is dealing with minds that he feels are
aggressive and not marked by profound grasp.

There have been two types of women in his life. Of
the women whom he knows in his family relationships,
he found the highest types in his mother, his sister, and
his wife. He was an anti-suffragist because nothing in his
earlier training or early contacts brought him in touch
with women who had political or public interests. His
first experience in meeting this type was at the time of the
Factory Investigating Commission, where he learned to
know women like Frances Perkins, Mary Dreier, Lillian
Wald, Nelle Swartz, Pauline and Josephine Goldmark
and Mrs. Florence Kelley. He learned to respect their,
social ideals, their judgment, and expert knowledge.

When women did get the vote he was prompt to see

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that they had absolutely equal privileges so far as his
party affiliations made that possible.

In speaking at a meeting of the Women's University
Club, during his first campaign in 1918, to an audience
of intellectual women, he immediately told them that he
had been opposed to woman suffrage, stated frankly his
reasons, and described his conversion. This was a group
to which he had been unwilling to speak, and he had said
on entering the clubhouse:

"I won't do anything more than just greet them and
leave all the talking to Bob Wagner."

But when he saw the audience before him he sensed
that it was worth an effort. He talked frankly about the
meaning of representative government and ended his
speech by saying something he had said more than once
before:

"I have had all this experience in the Legislature and
in the Constitutional Convention and on the Factory In-
vestigating Commission. I know what is right. If I ever
do anything that is wrong, it will not be because I don't
know it to be so, and you can write it down as being wil-
ful and deliberate and hold me to account for it. I want
to do what is right."

Whenever he was appealed to for help in revising the
structure of the State Committee, by requiring an equal
number of men and women to be elected from each dis-
trict, he opposed such compulsion and advocated that the
law should be written as it now is, merely increasing the

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IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

number and making it possible to elect a woman. He
equalized the position of women in the Civil Service for
the first time in the State and signed an order removing
the Civil Service disabilities of women by making them
eligible to take examinations, except where the nature of
the duties restricts a position to men.

As his strength has increased with the people, the or-
ganization is more likely to assume that he alone can sur-
mount certain obstacles. A notable incident of such need
was when Mayor Hylan wished a third term. The or-
ganization did not wish to fight with him and it turned
over to Smith the job of eliminating him. It is probable
that no one else could have done it. There was a strong
organization feeling for Walker. He had done decidedly
able work as Democratic leader of the State Senate and
was extremely popular in the local Democratic clubs.
Smith put himself behind him in the primaries, which he
won, and the election was a foregone conclusion. Of this
accomplishment the New York Sim said: "The brightest
laurels of yesterday rest on the head of Governor Smith.
Without him the defeat of Hylan would have been im-
possible. If he had been content to take the easy way, the
way most of the Tammany officeholders wanted to take,
Hylan would have been renominated without a struggle.
With the backing of the Democratic organizations, Hy-
lan's reelection would have been highly probable. The
City of New York, already suffering from eight years of
Hylanism, would be doomed to four years more of it.

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"Governor Smith began his fight against Mayor Hylan
last winter when he appointed the intelligent and fearless
Judge McAvoy to investigate transit conditions. The Mc-
Avoy report, laying the entire blame for the lack of new
subways at the door of the Mayor, opened the eyes of the
Democrats of the city to the political weakness of Mr.
Hylan, for this was the report of a judge born and bred
in Tammany Hall.

"When the time came to designate candidates for
mayor, Governor Smith was not turned from his oppo-
sition to Hylan by the refusal of the bosses of Brooklyn,
Queens, and Staten Island to abandon the Mayor. With
Judge Olvany of Tammany Hall and Leader Flynn of
the Bronx standing bravely with him, the Governor made
war, real war. Hylan was not to be beaten with a feather
duster. Smith went at him with the clubs of plain lan-
guage. He told the Democratic voters the truth about
the Mayor's failure to serve the city. He laid bare Mr.
Hylan's incapacity, his ignorance, his unwillingness to
learn.

"No Democrat except Alfred E. Smith could have
driven home the facts so tellingly. His sincerity, his gift
of homely speech, his power to hold and convince an
audience, were qualities which, coupled with the popular
trust in him, brought about recognition among Democrats
of Mr. Hylan's unfitness to be mayor. The enraged ob-
ject of this terrific political assault stormed and sneered,
denounced Smith as the ally of the Plunderband, de-

[208]

IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

scended even to criticism of the Governor's hotel bills,
and indulged in the vituperation with which he is gifted,
until the storm of yesterday's ballots fell upon him.

"So far as the citizens of New York generally were
concerned the issue of the primaries was not so much the
choosing of Walker or Waterman as it was the defeat of
Hylan. And preventing the nomination of a Hylan who
has played politics every hour of the day for nearly eight
years, is no mean task. It took a man of Governor Smith's
courage to undertake it. It took a man of his energy, de-
termination, and wisdom to carry it through. Smith was
the shock troops of the war. As he stands victorious at
the finish no man, Democrat or Republican, who loves
this city, will begrudge him the honors of the day."

Winning this primary fight against Hylan, Hearst, and
a large part of the Tammany organization, increased the
Governor's prestige not only in New York but through-
out the country as well. It was in commenting on this re-
sult that Senator Borah was quoted as saying, "We have
a Democratic candidate for president."

In one of his light allusions to Mayor Hylan, the Gov-
ernor inserted a fundamental part of his philosophy:
"The operation of government is a science. It requires men
not only who understand problems but who understand
men. Nearly every great problem in government is solved
after compromise. If a man is to be successful in an execu-
tive position, he must have some of the art of diplomacy.
He must at least be able to discuss a matter at hand intelli-

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UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

gently with other men who disagree with him. It is im-
possible for him to get anywhere if he mistakes honest dis-
agreement for antagonism. When a group of interested
citizens comes before the Chief Executive to make an
honest, straightforward request, he must be prepared to sit
down and discuss it. He cannot holler at them and say,
'You came up from Wall Street ! ' "

This little observation sums up a difference in gift and
conception that made harmony between Smith and Hylan
impossible, quite apart from any complication through the
fact that Hearst was the particular backer of Mayor
Hylan. To solve intricate problems either by shouting
"Wall Street" or by shouting "Socialism" is something too
foreign to Smith's nature to leave any common ground
between him and the former Mayor.

In 1922, Smith had been reluctant to run. He was in
business, making plenty of money, which his large family
needed. The pressure on him was intense. Friends of
Hearst had worked out a plan by which they believed they
could greatly strengthen the chances of victory. They
wanted to end the feud between the Governor and the
powerful publisher.

This feud had its origin far back in the history of the
Fourth Ward. In its earlier stages it had nothing to do
primarily with either Smith or Hearst, but was a conflict
for local power between Tom Foley and some of Hearst's
employees. After Smith's election in 1918, with a certain
amount of support from the Hearst papers, Mr. Hearst

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IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

felt that he had a right to ask for recognition, to the extent
of having either himself or his wife on the State com-
mittee to receive the returning soldiers. This desire was
the stronger in that Hearst's efforts to keep us out of the
war had greatly increased the amount of hostility to
him. Smith felt that he could not make the appointment
on account of the feeling of many who would have to be
on the committee.

There were plenty of other clashes that do not need to
be enumerated. Hearst charged in 1919 that New York
City had a dangerously bad milk supply and that Smith
was responsible, and that he was in league with the "milk
barons." Smith is not a person who overlooks charges
against him and to this one he was particularly sensitive.
In 1919 he challenged Hearst to a joint debate in Car-
negie Hall. The publisher did not appear. Smith did ap-
pear and made one of his most devastating speeches.

At Syracuse many of the district leaders were favorably
impressed with the idea of having Smith and Hearst on
the same ticket. Hearst was willing to run either for Gov-
ernor or Senator, if Smith would take the other place.
Smith stayed in his room in the hotel while the Conven-
tion was meeting, one person after another calling on him.
What Charles F. Murphy felt in his heart no one will
ever know, but the Hearst people received the impression
that he thought well of their plan. Bourke Cockran, a man
always admired by Smith, was one of those who called in
his room. Cockran urged him to make peace and increase

[an]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

the chances of victory. There were many others. Smith was
adamant. Perhaps it helped when one evening, as he sat
all alone in his room, Tom Foley poked his head in the
door and uttered one word, "Stick!" The heart of what
Smith replied to several was: "My mother was delirious in
her illness in 1919. As she raved, she said: 'My boy did
not do it. He was a poor boy. He loves children. He would
not feed them poison milk. He did not do it.' You can go
back and tell those who sent you that no matter what hap-
pens, and no matter how long I live, you will never find

my name on the same ticket with that ." He knew the

contest he was getting into. He said to one of his friends
before the Carnegie Hall challenge: "This begins the
longest and dirtiest fight in which I have ever been en-
gaged."

There is no reason to suppose that Smith's expression
of determination on this occasion had any other basis than
the one he gave. Whether he thought of it at the time or
not, however, he has been able to use the Hearst opposi-
tion as successfully as he has always been able to use Re-
publican opposition. It is pretty hard for the Hearst
papers or any other power to take away many Democratic
votes in the City of New York from Al Smith. On the
other hand, part of Smith's business as a strategist has been
to win votes from the Republican party in the rural dis-
tricts of the state. It is possible that as he sat, with dogged
determination, in his room at Syracuse, he had a conception
of his own method of winning victories, which is a very

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IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

different method from any that ordinary politicians
understand.

One more incident must suffice to illustrate his way of
taking a hand in the decisions of the organization. After
he had consented to run for a fourth term, there was
started one of those strange stories without which no polit-
ical campaign is complete. It happens that Smith and ex-
Senator Wadsworth are good personal friends. What
more natural, therefore, than for the smart ones of politics
to say that a deal had been arranged by which a weak can-
didate was to be nominated against Wadsworth, in return
for which favor the Republican machine was to ease up in
its efforts to defeat Smith.

Smith saw but one way to give a conclusive finish to this
tale, which was making headway in the State, it being the
kind of story human beings somehow like to tell. Smith
came down to New York and called on Robert F. Wagner.
Wagner had no desire to run for the Senate, as it looked
too hopeless. Nobody was sure that even Smith himself
could win, let alone the rest of the ticket. Indeed in the
first half of the campaign, the general opinion was that
Smith would lose, and that was the opinion before the
nominations were made. Smith put the situation to Wag-
ner as a matter of personal friendship. They had worked
together in Albany, one in the Assembly, the other in the
Senate. They had worked side by side in the Constitu-
tional Convention. They had been fellow-workers in the
task of trying to raise the ideals of the organization.

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"Bob," said Smith, "I am in difficulty. The only answer
to these stories is to nominate the strongest man we've
got, the man for whom the organization will work and
about whose sincerity there can be no question. They
have made up this lie and they have given it a good
start. You have got to help me out. The people know
the friendship between us. They will never believe that
I would sacrifice you. Therefore you must run."

Wagner did run, and Smith ran so well that Wagner,
with his own personal popularity added, also came
through.

When the time comes to take the stump Smith, in these
years of the governorship, has planned his campaigns even
more exactly than in the earlier years. His general policy
is to make only one speech a day and to prepare that speech
carefully. The more his opponents scatter, the better is he
pleased. The district leaders are not so active, the rumor
begins. They are going to sacrifice Al, because since he has
become great he has high-hatted them. Police and firemen
will knife him for not approving of their salary bill.
Teachers will knife him because he vetoed one of their sal-
ary increase bills. The Irish are against him because he has
supported the League of Nations. Roosevelt will get the
Jews, Italians, and Negroes, because they loved his father.
Mills has made a dent with his record, and so on and so
on and so on. Finally headquarters is in something not
unlike a panic. The actual opening of the campaign has ar-
rived. Smith turns up at headquarters. The atmosphere

IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

changes in a day. In two days the feeling goes out that
victory will be won.

The Mills campaign was an especially good example of
the difference between Smith and many of his professional
supporters on the principles of strategy. The Mills cam-
paign got started a full week before the Democrats were
doing anything. When protests were made to Smith he
answered, "I will start in my own good time." In his
opinion Mills was starting too soon. The Governor said,
"His campaign will blow up before he gets through."

Smith allows no obscurities when he selects the issues.
He looks over the publicity being turned out by the or-
ganization and by his group of supporting independent
citizens. He insists on the most complicated issues being
presented simply and the conclusions clearly drawn. For
example, Governor Miller was pressing his position on
transit, marshaling his facts and figures like a corporation
lawyer. Smith knew that in a few days such a complex
fight can only be handled at its essential point. He con-
centrated on the right of the city to have its own way in a
contract to which it is a party, and in which millions of
dollars in money are involved. He hammered this one
point throughout the campaign. He observed of Miller:
"That bird will never involve me in this campaign of con-
fusing figures if I can prevent it. He must be compelled
to stick to the nub of the issue."

In the Roosevelt campaign the advisers of the young
Colonel endeavored to foresee and avoid Smith's danger-

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

ous counter-attacks by having their candidate build a few
carefully prepared speeches full of patriotism and gen-
eralities. They staged Buddy meetings, with the young
Colonel Theodore slapping his fellow war heroes on the
back, and recognizing them by name. The Governor was
generous to his opponent. He was patient. He waited.
After a time young Roosevelt broke away from these more
careful generalities and attacked Smith in a few details.
Toward the end of the campaign the Colonel in his private
car tried to be pleasant to some college boys about a foot-
ball defeat. However, he mentioned the wrong team as
having defeated them. The boys looked embarrassed, and
the Colpnel asked if he had not mentioned the right team,
and then turned to those with him in the car and said,
"Who told me that?"

The next day the Governor was off on his series of
speeches that detailed Roosevelt's list of charges, all of
them showing a marked ignorance of the State's business.
He brought in like a refrain, "Who told Teddy that?"

Another instance of the danger of being off guard when
campaigning against the Governor was given when Roose-
velt in the 1924 campaign said, "We put up men who can
deliver the goods." Smith observed: "This is the largest
mouthful that the Republican candidate has said in the
whole course of his campaign." Then he went on: "Let
us look over the goods for a moment. Let us see just what
goods were delivered and to whom they were delivered."

IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR

Then followed Fall and Daugherty and a string of illus-
trations of predatory politics.

In his campaign against Congressman Mills his oppo-
nent had stated that if he were elected he would get along
with the Legislature like a cooing dove. Smith replied:
"The people of the State of New York want clear-headed,
strong-minded, fighting men at the head of the govern-
ment and not doves. Let the doves roost in the eaves of
the Capitol — not in the Executive Chamber. So much for
the doves, let us pass them up."

On the stump Smith speaks with his whole personality.
He seems to give himself out from his very vital organs.
His forefinger points toward the audience in warning or
illustration. Vitality goes out from him in a flood. But
above all things he tells his hearers the truth. He is one
of the few speakers who make thousands of people ac-
tually change their minds.

So much for the general impression that has spread
through the state 3 that in two years made Smith complete
master of that state; and that every year since has con-
solidated and increased his mastery. Behind the scenes
meantime has been going on some of the hardest thinking
that is being done on the political questions of our day.
Some of those basic matters we must now proceed to
examine,

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Chapter VII

MAJOR PURPOSES

THROUGHOUT the Governor's four terms much beneficial
legislation has been passed affecting public health, educa-
tion, protection of the State's wards, improvement in labor
conditions and in child welfare. Sufficient reference has
been made to his achievements as an administrator.

In the mass of his many recommendations four issues
stand out as the backbone of his program. Basic is the re-
organization of the State government. The need for im-
proved housing conditions he realized from the moment
he took office, and he never stopped fighting for a perma-
nent State housing policy. Adopting and financing a com-
prehensive State park system was another issue which gave
rise to some of the most difficult situations he had to meet,
and the conservation of the State natural resources, better
known as the water-power fight, was also one of his major
purposes.

If you ask a man fully informed — Senator Wagner, for
example — what in his opinion is Smith's most notable
single accomplishment, among the many to his credit, he
is likely to answer, "The reorganization of the govern-
ment of the State."

For six years, beginning with 1920, the Legislature had

[218] '

MAJOR PURPOSES

had before it the report of that expert non-partisan body,
the Reconstruction Commission. In addressing it on the
occasion of its organization, Governor Smith pointed out
that if large measures of social reform were to become its
program, the Commission would have to find the revenues
by savings or new forms of taxation. The State had just
lost $22,000,000 of revenue tax on account of the aboli-
tion of the excise tax brought about by prohibition. The
Reconstruction Commission then appointed a committee
on taxation and retrenchment. That committee studied
each department of the State government. It was headed
by Alfred E. Marling. Among its membership may be
mentioned Michael Friedsam, Mortimer L. Schiff, V.
Everit Macy, Arthur Williams, Charles L. Sabin, Ber-
nard Baruch, John C. McCall, and Charles P. Steinmetz.
Its Chief of Staff was Robert Moses, the present secre-
tary of state. Its report was submitted in 1919.

When the committee formulated its plan to revive the
reorganization of the government as suggested in the Con-
stitutional Convention, and to complete the job by pro-
posing a definite scheme of administration for each depart-
ment as well, doubt was expressed by some committee
members as to whether Governor Smith with his party
training would stand for it. The proposal was laid before
him and he asked a few searching questions indicating
that he was ready to go along if the plan was genuine and
far-reaching. More than cnce in the early days of the Re-
construction Committee he had asked the chairman, Mr.

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

Elkus, and the secretary: "Is this Commission going to do
something or is it just going to offer a report? Are you
going to have something definite that can be put into
effect to benefit the State? Because if you are not the
sooner you report and go out of existence the better."

The practicability of the plan received the whole-
hearted support of the new Governor and he was able to
keep his own political organization in line. The effective
opposition came from the machine of the other party.

Putting it briefly, the program of the Commission
called for three amendments to the constitution:

1. The reduction of the 189 agencies of the State with
their overlapping and costly functions to a compact organ-
ization restricted in future by the constitution to twenty
departments, and a short ballot consisting of the governor,
lieutenant governor, the comptroller and the attorney
general. This amendment is known as the consolidation
amendment.

2. An executive budget system.

3. The lengthening of the present two-year term of
the governor to four years.

The aim of the program was to simplify the structure
of the State government and to give the governor the
needed initiative and authority so that if he fails he has no
alibi.

The Commission advocated many statutory consolida-
tions of the departments and bureaus which by eliminating
duplication and waste would immediately effect savings.

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MAJOR PURPOSES

They would, in addition, pave a way for the reorganiza-
tions to be brought about by the constitutional amend-
ments, which required the successive approval of two leg-
islatures with a different Senate before they could be sub-
mitted to the people.

This large, complicated, and fundamental piece of
work was not accomplished by any one man or either party.
Nobody did more in thinking out the original outlines
than Senator Root. Nobody cooperated more generously
and usefully than Mr. Hughes. These statesmen of the
opposite party, however, would be the first to admit that
when it came to explaining and recommending the plan to
the people of the state, so that they voted for the neces-
sary amendments, Smith took the first place 5 and still
more unmistakably when it came to putting the general
principles into practical effect in Albany.

Mr. Root's part in the story was pleasantly referred to
by Smith at the end of a speech at the Economic Club in
New York on May 18, 1925, when he quoted from Mr.
Root's address to the Constitutional Convention of 1915 :

"Mr. Chairman, there is a plain old house in the hills
of Oneida overlooking the valley of the Mohawk where
truth and honor dwelt in my youth. When I go back, as
I am about to go, to spend my declining years, I mean to
go with the feeling that I can say that I have not failed to
speak and to act in accordance with the lessons that I
learned there from the God of my fathers. God grant
that this opportunity for service to our country and our

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UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

State may not be neglected by any of the men for whom
I feel so deep a friendship in this convention."

The Governor went on:

"I was sitting in the middle aisle of the Assembly on
the day that speech was made, and I can imagine that I see
the Senator tonight making an appeal to his own friends
in the Constitutional Convention, using the language that
it was his fervent hope to God that it rested inside of their
hearts to do something for their country and for the State.
And what was he talking about? What did he ask them to
do? What was it that excited him to so strong a personal
appeal to his friends? It was the passage of the reorgani-
zation plan for the State government by constitution, sub-
stantially as it is going to be submitted to the people of the
State this fall."

Business and civic organizations of the State studied
the findings of the Reconstruction Commission. The
earliest of such studies was made by the City Club of New
York, which appointed a Committee on Reconstruction
with ex-Governor Charles E. Hughes, later secretary of
state, as its chairman, and Congressman Ogden Mills as
its vice-chairman, the same Mills who ran against Smith
for the governorship in 1926. The committee consisted of
some of the ablest lawyers of the city and of experts on
government. After weeks of study it published its report
favoring the recommendations.

On December 8, 1919, a meeting of the City Club of
New York was held, at which Smith spoke. Mr. Hughes

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MAJOR PURPOSES

also spoke from practical experience as a State executive
and advocated the changes recommended. In his speech
Governor Smith said:

"It was apparent to everybody as soon as we adopted
the principle of taxing incomes that, unless there was
some chedc on the other end of the string, the tempta-
tion would be very strong upon the Legislature year after
year to move that tax up a quarter, a half or a whole
point j and it was with this thought in mind that the Re-
construction Commission began the study of a reorgani-
zation of the State government, not so much for the cure
of the evils which exist today but to prevent a recurrence:
of them. . . .

"From the standpoint of economy there is no doubt in
the minds of reasonable men that the waste in this State is
due entirely to the duplication of effort on the part of the
different departments. Inspectors of all kinds are con-
stantly traveling through the state. The State of New
York is the greatest patron the New York Central Rail-
road has. We probably pay out more money for traveling
expenses than the combined outlay of any five business
concerns in the State. . . .

"After we have reconstructed the State government,
as I hope we are going to do, we ought to have a little
committee to look over the laws of the State and find out
if there isn't some way to have the Governor working at
things which mean something to the people of the
State. . . .

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UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

"Every time the State makes a lease — the Public Ser-
vice Commission hired a gas-testing station over in Queens
at a rent of $55 a year — I have to sign four copies of that
lease before it means anything. The Governor has to pass
upon the contract for removing the ashes from the power
house, and when the contractor who had it found himself
thrown into war-time prices, and unable to go on with it,
he came over to the Executive Chamber and the only man
he could sit down with to talk about the cost of moving
those ashes was the Governor. So we want a committee,
after we have got this reconstruction job out of the way,
to just go through the statutes and see if the Attorney-
General or the Secretary of State cannot sign some of the
leases and contracts to move the ashes, and leave the Gov-
ernor to direct his attention to the great, big problems, the
big things that the State is interested in, like the health
department and the care of the insane and the mentally
deficient, great questions of conservation, water power de-
velopment, or any number of such questions which no-
body is studying because no living man can do it and at-
tend to routine work at the same time.

"Now I think I have briefly summed up the situation.
This is the best place I can find to make a strong appeal
for non-partisanship in dealing with this report. I believe
that I enjoy some little reputation for keeping my word.
I will give it — I will give it to the Legislature — that if
they will come in with me, take this report, do the best
that they can with it, I am not going to be like the fellow

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MAJOR PURPOSES

who insists on getting his bill the way it is printed — be-
cause usually that fellow doesn't want the bill. If they
won't take it all, I will go along with them as far as they
will go, and I will promise them now that at no time in
the future will it ever be referred to by me, or by any-
body over whom I have any control, as any program of
mine. The fact of the matter is: It is not my program.
The real truth about it is I could not think that all out
myself."

In the same speech the Governor answered a criticism
that such reorganization and centralized responsibility as
he favored would in fact make the governor a tsar. He
pointed out that the president of the United States is not
a tsar although he names his whole cabinet. The mayor of
New York City also appoints his whole cabinet.

On another occasion when he and Lieutenant-Governor
Lowman were both addressing the Women's City Club,
and the papers had just been giving some space to such
charges, Lowman derisively referred to the reorganization
program as Governor Smith's attempt to make himself a
king. The Governor rose to speak, and smiling broadly,
invited the women who formed the audience to "meet the
King, the King of Oliver Street."

All amendments to the constitution having to pass two
Legislatures with a new Senate, before submission to the
people, the amendments were first submitted to the Leg-
islature in 1920. The consolidation amendment passed
both houses but the executive budget and the four-year

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UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

term were defeated. The reorganization of the govern-
ment was an obvious necessity if a social and business pro-
gram was to be drawn up. But in the interim between
Smith's first and second terms the amendment was de-
feated for second passage by the hostility of Governor
Miller and Speaker Machold. During his second term
Smith started the passage of the amendment to consoli-
date the State government on its way again, and it passed
again for the first time.

In this term he appointed a commission to investigate
the defects in the law and the administration of the law.
It was in this term also that he took the lead in securing
the authorization of the bond issue of $50,000,000 for
the construction of State institutions, and other large ap-
propriations to decrease fire hazards in State institutions.
The Commission on Housing and Regional Planning was
appointed in that term, and the large work on State parks
had its serious beginning. Another reorganization arranged
for was that of prisons. Water power development plans
were also proposed at that time.

It was not until 1925, the first year of his third term,
that the consolidation amendment passed finally for sub-
mission to the people.

Throughout these years the Governor took his program
to the people. He would select strategic times and audi-
ences throughout the state. The Rochester, Buffalo and
Syracuse Chambers of Commerce came to know his views,
and the yarious non-partisan civic organizations of New

MAJOR PURPOSES

York, the State Federation of Women's Clubs, the League
of Women Voters, were his chosen audiences. He lost no
opportunity to challenge the opposition to debate the issue
of reorganization with him.

By the end of the session of 1926 it can be said that the
reorganization program which had begun in 1920 was in
the main an accomplished fact. The short ballot, looked
upon by the Governor as the most important single step in
the whole modernization of the government, went in the
constitution by the referendum of 1925, and on October
24, 1925, the Governor said of the short ballot:

"That amendment is the most important of the four,
in my opinion. You may defeat the two bonding amend-
ments and the State can go on, but if this short ballot
amendment is beaten do not look for anything construc-
tive in the government of this State during your life-time
or mine.

"Why should we go on electing a state treasurer who
never has a cent and is a clerk, and a secretary of state who
is little more than a clerk? Why should you strain your
conscience every election day trying to pick out a good
state engineer? Is there any difference between a Demo-
cratic and a Republican engineer? Why do we have to
have new commissions every few weeks for everything in
the world? Patronage, that is the reason."

Referring to this fight for consolidation, the State
Bulletin, which is published by the New York State Asso-
ciation, pointed out that Governors Tilden, Cleveland,

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UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

Roosevelt, Hughes, and Smith fought the battle of the
taxpayers, but that the permanent reform of the system
can be brought about in no other way than by consoli-
dating the departments to give greater power to the gov-
ernor and thus put on him clearer responsibility.

As soon as the amendments had passed the Legislature
in 1925 the Republican leaders of the Legislature and
other foes of the reorganization and bond amendments
began a secret fight to defeat them. Their state propa-
ganda bureau published an unfortunate series of attacks
and as four amendments were to be submitted — two bond
issues, one consolidation and short-ballot amendment and
one to reorganize the judiciary — the bureau advised Re-
publican voters that the best slogan for the fall election
was, "Beat all the amendments." That was enough for
Smith. It was the great lever he needed with which to
force the issue. Much of the opposition was the aftermath
and bitter resentment caused by the victories of the Gov-
ernor over the Legislature in the session of 1925. He
confronted the Republican leaders with the editorials and
statements put out under their own bureau heading and
charged them with bad faith. He went to men like Root
and Stimson and his other friends of the Constitutional
Convention who had advocated these reforms and showed
them what their own party was trying to do. He spoke
openly of the documents he had, proving the intent to
knife the reform. He forced Republican support as an
evidence of good faith on their part.

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MAJOR PURPOSES

When it became apparent that the amendment would
pass. Smith planned to appoint a non-partisan commission
to draft the necessary enabling legislation to make the
constitutional amendment effective. An attempt was even
made to have the Legislature create such a commission.
But during the 1925 session of the Legislature, the Re-
publican legislative leaders still secretly hoped to defeat
the amendment at the polls or, failing that, to render it
ineffective in operation by going through the forms of a
reorganization without the substance. This had happened
when the Massachusetts government was reorganized and
the friends of consolidation in New York wanted to pre-
vent any such failure. The Legislature refused to con-
sider such a commission but the Republican intellectual
leaders who were honest in their support not unnaturally
wished to have a part in the reorganization of the State
government, and for less worthy reasons the machine poli-
ticians of the party also wished to share with Smith any
credit that was to be distributed. The Governor delayed
carrying out his intention and the two Republican legis-
lative leaders jumped into the breach. McGinnies, the
speaker of the Assembly, and Knight, the Senate leader,
announced the appointment of an unofficial committee to
submit a report on enabling legislation to make the
amendment work.

Governor Smith suggested that he ought to be per-
mitted to name at least a few of the members of this com-
mittee. This was agreed to but the Governor was warned

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by McGinnies that it might be difficult to put over any-
thing so unpalatable with "the boys." The Governor sub-
mitted a list which included some of the ardent friends
and workers for this amendment who had been con-
sciously omitted. The Speaker accepted all but four of the
names suggested, and of course rejected the three men
and one woman most actively identified with the whole
movement as "unacceptable." They then let it be known
that they planned to name as chairman of the committee
H. Edmund Machold, former speaker of the Assembly,
who from the beginning had been a consistent foe of
reorganization and consolidation. In 1921 he had taken
the leading part in preventing the Assembly from submit-
ting the measures to the people after the Republican Sen-
ate had acted favorably. Never had he spoken a word in
favor of the principle at stake. Since his retirement from
the Assembly he had become president of one of the big
water power companies of the state.

This audacious move was made just before the adop-
tion at the polls of the constitutional amendment and
could only have been intended as a last desperate attempt
to defeat the effectiveness of the amendment by framing
legislation that would keep the form and kill the sub-
stance.

While rumors of Machold's selection as chairman were
going about, the Governor himself quietly made a char-
acteristic move. He paid a visit to Mr. Hughes at his
summer home at Lake George. He knew that Hughes was

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MAJOR PURPOSES

interested in reorganization and Hughes knew that Smith
was. Smith asked Hughes to take the chairmanship of the
unofficial committee for which the machine men had been
grooming Machold. Smith made no statement about his
visit. It was not he who openly suggested Hughes. When
the Republicans themselves announced his name the Gov-
ernor merely acquiesced in the choice.

The autumn of 1925 witnessed a campaign of popular
education, the like of which had never been seen before.
Never before had the people of New York discussed their
own affairs at such length and with such exact understand-
ing. This State-wide discussion of the complicated busi-
ness of running a great State was led by the Governor.

As soon as the amendment was adopted the commit-
tee settled down to hard work. It was a good committee,
with outstanding men from both parties. Among the Dem-
ocrats were John W. Davis, their candidate for the presi-
dency in 1924, William Church Osborne, who had run
against Smith in the primaries of 1918, and James A.
Foley, who had stood with Smith and Wagner as a leader
of the New York Democratic organization toward better
things. Among the Republicans were Henry L. Stimson,
former Governor Whitman, former Attorney-General
George W. Wickersham, and Martin W. Saxe.

The important post of secretary of the committee was
held by Walter Arndt of the Citizens' Union. Mr.
Hughes was undoubtedly the dominating figure. For their
report the members did not have sufficient time or long

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

enough experience and it had some defects, but the con-
sensus of opinion of the best-known Republicans and
Democrats was that the committee did a good job.

Smith differed with the proposed reorganization of the
Public Service Department. The report retained the Tran-
sit Commission, which has regulatory power over New
York City transit, as a separate agency, whereas the Gov-
ernor desired to have it abolished and New York City to
enjoy complete Home Rule in this function. However,
the Governor accepted the findings, retaining the func-
tions and membership of the Transit Commission merged
with the Public Service Commission, stating that he would
sign any bills drawn up by the Hughes committee.

When Mr. Hughes was Governor he did not have an
easy time with the politicians. They did not love him in
1925, any more than when he was Governor, but they
were in an embarrassing position, as they scarcely had the
insolence to turn down the report of a commission with as
large Republican prestige as this one. Some of the bills
that were introduced in consequence of the report and
swallowed by the Legislature of 1926 were as harsh and
unpalatable as possible ; for example, the abolition of the
Water Power Commission. It was politically clear that it
would not do to mutilate the report in any way unless the
consent of Hughes to proposed changes could be obtained.
Mr. Hughes did not budge. He took the position that the
work was done and could not be undone. The Governor
stood with him. So the leader of the Democratic party and

THE GOVERNOR AND HIS TWO YOUNGER SONS, ARTHUR
AND WALTER, VIEW A GRADE CROSSING AT SYRACUSE

MAJOR PURPOSES

the most distinguished members of the Republican party
acted together in an emergency in opposition to the small-
ness of machine thought. More than that, the Hughes
committee made a strong report urging the adoption of
the Executive Budget by constitutional amendment — a bit-
ter pill for its opponents to swallow.

Naturally the water-power interests were intensely con-
cerned over the work done by the committee in relation to
the Conservation Department. They preferred to keep
the then existing Water Power Commission, composed of
the State engineer, the attorney-general, the conservation
commissioner, the speaker of the Assembly, and the ma-
jority leader of the Senate, instead of merging it into
the Conservation Department and giving the Governor
power of approval over all future leases as the Hughes
Committee proposed. But the adoption of the short ballot
amendment had abolished the office of state engineer and
they had to accept the new order of things.

Smith's acceptance of the Hughes report not only fol-
lowed his general belief in non-partisanship and showed
his sincerity, but there was a special reason that would have
made any other course of conduct unsound. It followed in
its general line the recommendations of the Reconstruc-
tion Commission. There was only one point on which the
Hughes Committee could seriously be criticized by a non-
partisan student, although it was criticized in various ways
by thick and thin partisans of the Governor. There can be
o legitimate excuse put forward for its failure to take

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UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

the State elections as far as possible out of national cam-
paigns and thereby lead the people to vote on State issues.
It did accept the four-year term for Governor but it re-
fused to recommend that the Governor be elected in years
when there was no national election. This unsound step
was brought about by the fact that the Democrats have a
somewhat better chance of electing the Governor if the
campaign is not mixed up with national issues, and also if
the farmers are not interested enough to go to the polls.

This issue on the reduction of national politics in state
campaigns bids fair to be with us for a long time. In the
campaign of 1926 the Governor summed it up by saying:

"No second-rate man of either of the great parties
should be given an opportunity to steal a ride into the
Executive Chamber on the back of the national band
wagon."

The Hughes Committee was succeeded by an official
legislative commission on reorganization. The two mem-
bers of this commission appointed by the Governor were
Robert Moses and Addison B. Colvin, who had been a
member of the Reconstruction Commission and later was
chairman of the New York State Association.

As reorganization is being worked out today, it has its
clearest and most immediate realization in the meetings of
the Governor's cabinet. That is where the actual work is
being done. The Governor and the heads of his principal
administrative departments come together about once
every two weeks and spend the afternoon in a brisk state-

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MAJOR PURPOSES

ment of what has happened in every department and what
needs to be done to keep the work moving. Nobody rises
when he speaks. Interruptions are frequent. First names
abound. The Governor presides. Sitting around the long
table are the Assistant to the Governor, the Superintend-
ent of Public Works, the Commissioner of Taxation and
Finance, the Commissioner of Education, the State Archi-
tect, the Secretary of State, the Commissioner of Health,
the Director of the State Board of Charities, the Com-
missioner of Mental Hygiene, the Commissioner of Agrk
culture and Markets, the President of the Civil Service
Commission, the Director of the Executive Budget, and
the Assistant Secretary to the Governor.

As the Governor himself put it at the first meeting of
the cabinet on February 9, 1927:

"This is probably what might well be termed a meeting
of the directors of the big institution, of the big business,
of the State of New York. . . .

"As far as it can possibly be done for the balance of
my term, I propose to leave to the men that sit around
this table every possible detail of their departments, so
that the Governor will only have one man to talk to.
When he wants to talk about the State hospitals he will
have one man to talk to. When he wants to talk about pub-
lic parks, he will have one man to talk to, and the same
way when he wants to talk about agriculture, charities,
education."

At the second meeting on February 23, the Governor

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UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

spoke of the none too easy question of just where legisla-
tive responsibility ends. He said:

"That grand old theory they spoke about years ago
when everybody was falling over themselves, giving so
much credit to the wisdom of our forefathers when set-
ting up our government in three branches, that is fine
talk, but the Legislature for the last ten years anyway —
I never heard of it in my early days in the Legislature —
but in the last ten years at least, the Legislature has started
to try and run the government through the appropriation
bill. The Legislature is a law-making body 5 it isn't an ad-
ministrative body by any means j never was intended to
be. . . ."

On March 9, he gave to his friends an example that
presents in simple form the essence of the system of ad-
ministrative control by the Legislature :

"I had my attention called to a bill amending the Pub-
lic Buildings Act, in order to bring it into conformity with
the new Department of Public Works Act. There was a
nice little provision inserted in it that all allotments of
space by the Superintendent of Public Works in the Cap-
itol would have to have the approval of the Speaker of the
Assembly and the President pro tern, of the Senate, and I
sent for both these gentlemen and had them recall the
bill, and I said to them, 'You don't want me to subscribe
to the theory that if I want to get an extra room for a
couple of stenographers, the Superintendent of Pub-
lic Works cannot give it to me until I send out to Wyo-

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MAJOR PURPOSES

ming and Chautauqua Counties to get your consent to it! '

"The whole history of appropriations in this State,
going back — and it is no indictment of any particular polit-
ical party 5 all political parties have done the same thing —
going back over twenty years you will always find that ap-
propriations for progressing public work are low in even-
numbered years, and there must be some reason for it,
and the reason for it is that in that year both political
parties are striving for a record of economy on the theory
that the people are going to believe that low appropriation
bills mean economy, whereas those that are running the
State know that no such thing is true.

"It is no economy to start a prison in 1917 and not com-
plete it until 1929. This is a definite loss to the State. It
is not allowed the use of the prison during all these years,
but doing that job piecemeal is twice as expensive as let-
ting a single contract for it and pushing it to completion
at the earliest possible moment."

At this meeting the Governor appointed a committee
of five to do more detailed work than the Cabinet itself
can do in following up and speeding up work done under
the appropriations made from the bond issue for various
public improvements. On that committee he put the Super-
intendent of Public Works, the State Architect, one of the
Tax Commissioners, the head of the Budget Bureau, and
the Secretary of State.

It has been stated elsewhere in this book that the Gov-
ernor accomplished a notable feat of public education

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when, apparently with all the chances against him, he in-
duced the people of the state to accept the grade crossing
amendment. At this meeting on June 2, Colonel Greene
reported that by the end of 1927 there would be ordered
and under contract the elimination of two hundred grade
crossings as against twelve when he came into office. This
estimate omitted the three cities of Syracuse, Buffalo and
New York.

The Governor had a good deal of experience to con-
tribute on this subject, as he had on most subjects. Refer-
ring to the old system of railroad grade crossings, he said :

"I waited for one freight train to pass me three times.
I recognized it as the same train. On the end was a fellow
with a blue shirt and he saw Number Two on my car and
each time he passed it, he said, 'Hello, Al.' I thought it
was another train at first."

A little later while on the point of hurrying things up
he said:

"If you are satisfied it is right, you tell him to take his
hands off, or he will be whereas'd. Let's get the work
started."

The Governor, with unusual exhilaration, even for
him, made the following announcement:

"I desire to announce to the Cabinet that at the annual
meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in Cincin-
nati, Ohio, for our hospital designs of our hospital build-
ings and our psychiatric institute down on Riverside Drive,
we swept the board. We got all the prizes. We got the

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MAJOR PURPOSES

first, the second, the third, and the fourth prize. There
wasn't anybody else in it."

The four medals with their ribbons attached hang on
the wall of the Governor's private office opposite his desk.

It must have become clear to the reader before this
time that the Governor with all his Jeffersonian qualities
is a firm believer in the active use of the State power for
the general welfare. Among the causes behind which he
has put his strength, the one most energetically attacked
as socialistic is housing. It is an extremely difficult subject.

In a life of Governor Smith, intended for the general
reader and for the forty-eight States, it is not desirable to
go into all the aspects of all the plans that have been
drawn up for New York State or even into that selection
from the plans which has been put before the Governor,
and either approved or disapproved by him. The most im-
portant and general conclusion, as bearing on a study of
his mind and character, is that he has been heart and soul
in favor of a large degree of governmental responsibility
for the solution of housing problems $ or, to put it in dif-
ferent words, for the task of getting rid of slums and such
dwellings as make for ill health and low morality. He has
wished to go further in using the power of the State for
this purpose than the Legislature has been willing to go.

About half the population of the State live in Greater
New York City. It is estimated that two-thirds of all the
families in that city live in housing circumstances in which
it is not possible to rear children properly and to enjoy

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home life. Crime is traced to housing conditions, as surely
as are tuberculosis and pneumonia. Over 500,000 families
in New York City are living in ill-lighted, unsanitary and
unsafe tenements outlawed twenty-five years ago, accord-
ing to the 1927 report of the New York State Board of
Housing.

The legislative struggle reached its height in 1926.
The leaders for seven years had been afraid of facing the
more permanent aspects of the question. The Governor,
on the other hand, although no radical, had made up his
mind that a solution would not be reached without State
action and he fought hard for some effective way to solve
the problem. At the same time he was using his personal
influence and persuasiveness to endeavor to stir up public-
spirited men of wealth to build houses. As far back as
1920 he met a group of such men at the Metropolitan
Club in New York City. Nothing resulted from that meet-
ing or from other similar ones. From experiments now
going on, however, notably in Queens, it is evident that
patience is needed even when dealing with so pressing an
evil. Much as the Governor's heart is stirred up by dam-
age done to humanity by slum conditions, nobody under-
stands more clearly than he that deep public reforms re-
quire time.

In the bill which was submitted to the Legislature in
1926, were included all the devices considered best calcu-
lated to promote the building of new houses in congested
slum areas j condemnation of sites, limited dividend com-

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MAJOR PURPOSES

panies, regulation of rents, tax exemption, a permanent
State Housing Board, and a State Bank modeled on the
Federal Farm Loan Bank and intended to lend money at
low rates of interest to State-controlled housing projects.

The State Housing Law as it finally passed the Legisla-
ture of 1926 had the following features:

Limitation of dividends on capital invested in housing
projects to eliminate speculative profit.

Exemption of the housing corporation, its stock, bonds,
and interest thereon from State taxation to reduce annual
charges on the project.

Permissive exemption of buildings and improvements
from local taxation to further reduce annual charges.

Exercise of the power of condemnation to insure acqui-
sition, at fair prices, of suitable sites for large scale pro-
duction.

Statutory limitation of rents to insure that the econo-
mies so gained shall be conserved for the tenants.

Creation of a State Board of Housing to administer
the law.

The Republican leaders were unalterably opposed to
what they termed the socialistic State Bank idea of Smith's
plan and pursued the tactics of condemning the whole bill.
The Governor and others, however, had stirred up so
much public feeling that the Republicans in the Legis-
lature wanted to compromise. A conference was arranged
and held in the Executive Chamber. The introducers of
the bill, representatives of the State Housing Commis-

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

sion, a committee appointed by a Republican research or-
ganization, and some other friends of good housing were
present. One of the Republican committee members in a
burst of ingenuousness described a dinner of Republican
leaders in honor of Senator Wadsworth on the previous
evening, at which he said there^ was much talk about the
proposed housing bill. He said he himself had talked with
many of them and even with Wadsworth himself. The
general instruction of every one, he said, was never "to
give in to Smith on the housing bank; it is too socialistic."

"Gentlemen," said the Governor, "there we have it.
There is no use in continuing this conference further. This
gentleman has just told the truth about it. His commit-
tee has come here with orders that the Legislature is not to
pass this bill in this form. The boss has spoken. What's
the use? I suggest we appoint a small committee and try
and see what we can get. But you Republicans will have to
take the responsibility if this bill does not achieve the de-
sired result of building houses."

He participated in the resulting conference himself. In
the course of it the Republicans laid great stress on making
sure that the State Housing Board to be appointed should
be bi-partisan. The way in which this deep-lived notion of
politicians was brushed aside by the Governor illustrates
how much his mere pleasantness sometimes accomplishes.
Smith had fully come to look on bi-partisanship as a stupid
element in government, and as a direct contradiction of
the correct principle, which is non-partisanship in the busi-

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MAJOR PURPOSES

ness problems of the State, which vastly predominate over
the few properly political problems. When the Republi-
cans raised their point of party representation on the
Board, Smith said:

"You do not need such a provision. There is no danger
of my appointing a commission made up entirely of Re-
publicans."

This may not sound like an epoch-making joke, but the
little pleasantry did the trick. A non-partisan board was
appointed.

Although disappointed in not getting his whole pro-
gram he feels that a permanent foundation has been laid,
and that if the work does not progress under the present
law, it will be possible to make successful agitation for the
State Housing Bank or some other form of State or local
credit. So far, in spite of recent efforts in the City of New
York, it certainly cannot be claimed that the seventy per
cent, who lack proper housing face any immediate pros-
pect of getting it.

There are three general ways of approaching a social
evil of this sort. One is the socialistic attitude, which looks
upon it as a positive advantage to have work done by gov-
ernmental bodies instead of by private bodies. One is the
complete opposite, which relies on private enterprise for
all conceivable activities and would usually rather endure
an evil than take public action. The third point of view,
which is that of Smith, and which is increasing both in the
United States and elsewhere, is that when business organi-

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zations and voluntary good will organizations will do a
work, it is better to have it so done, but that a serious com-
munity disease should not be allowed to continue merely
because there is no voluntary cure.

A few years will probably show whether sufficient
money can be raised through the good will of our wealthy
citizens and through tax exemptions, without use of public
credit.

Smith has been much more interested in the ques-
tion of house building than he has been in the related un-
dertakings that have been carried on as part of the same
movement. The legislative committee which was appointed
in 1919, called the Lockwood Committee, had for its
counsel Samuel Untermyer, a well-known New York
attorney. It dealt principally with price fixing and other
illegal activities. It also had a strong effect in stirring up
the public and making it possible to protect tenants for the
time being from rent exploitation caused by the housing
shortage, but it did not contribute to the solution of the
ultimate problem.

Smith's mood may perhaps best be given in his own
words. In the memorandum approving the bill, the Gov-
ernor said:

"We must make a beginning in the attack on the en-
trenched system of constructing housing for speculative
purposes only and having reached the conclusion as evi-
denced by this bill, that the State has a responsibility in
the matter, earnest cooperation between the State and local

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MAJOR PURPOSES

agencies who can aid in practical ways, and those who can
and will finance such undertakings, should soon establish
results.

"This legislation is not perfect, nor do I believe we
have said the last word on the subject, but honest effort
on the part of all those connected with its operation will
soon demonstrate in what direction further aid is needed.

"In approving this bill I do so with the sincere hope that
it may prove the beginning of a lasting movement to wipe
but of our State those blots upon civilization, the old, di-
lapidated, dark, unsanitary, unsafe tenement houses that
long since became unfit for human habitation and cer-
tainly are no place for future citizens of New York to
grow in."

This vision of Smith's of a world without crowded and
dirty homes to poison the bodies and characters of the
poor is listed by us among his major purposes. It is clear
that the first purpose we have put on this list, the creation
of a workable tool out of the State government, has been
accomplished, and it is equally clear that the housing solu-
tion has not been reached. Nevertheless, as a purpose,
nothing in the Governor's life is more significant. There
are the real people, the people whose reality burns most.
brightly in his own memory and imagination. They are
there with their hopes, their devotions. For the lack of
space, air, light, drainage, they see their children waste
away, and sometimes turn to crime. Smith asks the rich
men of the world's richest city to stop this evil. He has

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

no desire that the State or the city shall be the instrument
for stopping it, but he believes that it must be stopped.
What is right should be donej what is necessary must be
done. If that be socialism, we might say, make the most
of it. Human health and happiness are what is sought. If
one method fails, we shall turn to another.

Alongside of the duty of seeing that seventy per cent.
of the people have open to them more wholesome and
happier home possibilities, lies the duty of seeing that they
and their children have as much of a chance at the oppor-
tunities of nature as may be.

Thus we pass from the problem of homes to the prob-
lem of parks.

Extending the system of State parks and establishing a
centralized administrative control were focused in 1919
by the report of the Reconstruction Commission. This re-
port was based in part upon investigations made previously
by the Bureau of Municipal Research when it was under
the direction of Dr. Frederick A. Cleveland. Long before
that study, some students had realized that the parks in
New York State were acquired haphazard and adminis-
tered on wrong principles. The report recommended
coordination.

After Governor Smith went out of office at the end of
1920, park agitation was taken up energetically by the
New York State Association. When he returned to office
at the beginning of 1923, the Association was influential

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MAJOR PURPOSES

in showing him that he ought to put all his strength be-
hind the park program.

The original recommendation of the Reconstruction
Commission was to create one agency like the Conservation
Department under a single head to administer the parks.
There came into the situation so much local pride, and in-
deed local love of park work already in existence, that a
compromise was brought about, providing for a park coun-
cil to be made up of representatives from the various park
boards already in existence, which were grouped in regions
such as Long Island, Niagara, Central New York, and
Allegheny.

Probably the most fertile source of irritation about
parks between the Governor and the Legislature was
the Long Island park situation.

The Long Island Park Commissioners had found an
estate there that had not been in use for twenty years.
But when the people owning big estates in the neighbor-
hood found out that it was to be turned into a park,
trouble began. They sent a delegation to see the Governor.
The Park Commissioners had signed a contract to pur-
chase the land, but these influential rich men caused the
contract to be repudiated. The State then seized the land
by the right of appropriation. A long litigation followed
and when the case came to trial at Riverhead at the far
end of Long Island in December, 1926, Governor Smith
himself made the four-hour trip down there and took the

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stand as a witness, testifying for the Long Island Park
Commissioners.

The Park Commission also proposed to build a new
parkway along the north shore of the island through the
beautiful hill section. The millionaire neighbors pro-
tested that whatever parkways were built should run down
the middle of the island.

Smith's informal comment on this suggestion was: "The
middle of Long Island is about as interesting as Hogan's
Alley. I would sooner ride down First Avenue any day
than the middle of the island."

He named the men who had come to see him to ask
him "to keep the rabble off Long Island," and dared them
to deny his report of the conversation just as he named
the men in the Legislature who were acting as tools of a
special interest.

In the conversation with him, as it drew towards a close,
one of the delegates took a light turn and said: "Governor,
where can a poor millionaire go and be left alone?"

The Governor replied: "Go up to the Harlem Valley
Hospital."

In 1924 a referendum was carried providing
$ 1 5,000,000 for the purchase of park lands. These funds
had to be appropriated to the various park projects by
the Legislature. The bill passed in 1925, appropriating
the first eight million dollars of the fifteen, provided that
all purchases of land for parks were to be approved by
the Commissioners to the Land Office, popularly called

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MAJOR PURPOSES

the Land Board. The Land Board then consisted of the
lieutenant-governor, speaker of the Assembly, the secre-
tary of state, the comptroller, the state treasurer, the at-
torney general and the state engineer. Lump-sum funds
allotted were to be spent only by approval of the legis-
lative finance committees. The real purpose of this pro-
vision was to perpetuate administrative control of the
parks by the Legislature and to keep a veto power over
land purchases, especially as applied to the Long Island
Park Commission.

The effect of this bill, if passed, would have been to
place in the hands of a group of elected officials who knew
nothing at all about parks the control of the whole mat-
ter of land purchase, and to open up a field for logrolling.
The controversy really centered about the control of ap-
propriations for purchases of park lands and the adminis-
tration of the parks. Smith and the State Park Council be-
lieved that land purchases should be left to the Park
Council and not be controlled by the Land Board.

This Board was composed of elected officials whose
time was not spent on the duties of land purchases, but
who left the actual performance of the work to clerks.
Aside from the fact that the Land Board would be legis-
lated out of office by the adoption of the reorganization
amendment that same year, Smith argued that a non-parti-
san group, interested solely in promoting parks and witK
no political axes to grind, was better suited to direct the?

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expenditure of the State's money for park lands and park
administration than these elected officials busy with other
duties, or than the Legislature itself, which he was trying
in several ways to keep in its own sphere of lawmaking
and out of the field of administrative control.

The Governor vetoed the bill passed at the regular
1925 session of the Legislature, and said:

"I would rather be responsible for delaying this pro-
gram for a short time and getting the right principles es-
tablished by an appeal to the people of the state, than to
compromise with the principles and accept any such un-
workable measure as the Thayer bill. If we do not start
right on the park program, we will never get anywhere in
the end."

After the legislative session dosed, the Governor en-
deavored to come to an understanding unofficially with the
leaders of the Legislature. A conference was held but it
was clear that there was no chance of agreement. The
Governor went to the people in his usual way and as a re-
sult the Chairman of the Park Council was supposed to
have obtained a definite promise from William L. Ward,
boss of Westchester County, that the Westchester County
legislators would stand by the Governor. If they did so
stand, he had the necessary majority to pass his bill. The
Governor himself talked with the senior Senator from
Westchester and on the basis of that talk called a special
session of the Legislature for June 22, 1925.

On the evening of that day, before the Assembly and

MAJOR PURPOSES

Senate sitting together, he delivered an address which was
carried over the state by the radia It was a powerful ad-
dress, but the leaders were not ready to yield. The West-
chester legislators could not stand the pressure and wilted,
and the Thayer bill came to him again in a form in which
he could not sign it, an4 on the twenty-sixth of June he
again vetoed it.

In fighting a battle with the legislature like this, all
of Smith's most notable characteristics were called into
play. In the first place there was the unequaled knowl-
edge of detail he acquired on the Ways and Means Com-
mittee, as majority and minority leader of the As-
sembly, coming out in a blaze before the leading minds
of the state in the Convention; kept up during the
two and a half years he was in office in New York City,
and also during the two years he was in business there $ and
increased naturally during his governorships. He knew
the business side. He knew the political psychology and
the political tricks. He knew the public and how to make
it think. In this particular case he saw the excuse that
would be offered. That excuse is familiar to everybody
who undertakes to pry any power loose from the profes-
sional politicians. So he warned the Legislature that it
would do them no good to have one of their members
give out a statement to the press tomorrow, that the Gov-
ernor was riding roughshod over the constitutional officers
of the State. He said he would follow that statement up
and expose it immediately.

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

The Land Board, that political survival to which the
politicians were clinging as their last hope to keep the
parks in politics, was described by him without mercy: "I
take page 181 of your appropriation bill this year. Ac-
cording to that bill you allowed $1,250 to a clerk in the
office of the secretary of state and you called him the sec-
retary of the Land Board. He receives $3,000 from the
State for his services to the secretary of state and an addi-
tional $1,250 for his services to the Land Board. Plus that
you made him a present of two appraisers at $2,750 and
aside from the members of the Land Board that is the en-
tire personnel of the Land Office. . . ."

One of these two men owned a paint shop in Buffalo
and had recently been appointed. Of the pretense that
such a board could do the work it was supposed to do, the
Governor said:

"There is humor • enougH in the world and there are
places to go when you want to be amused, but this is too
serious a business to suggest that the paint-shop keeper and
his friend from Orleans County are going to pass upon
all the purchases of parks and park lands."

The Park Council, on the other hand, was made up of
a dozen leading citizens of the State especially familiar for
years with park needs, and with no political motives.
Facing the idea of having the two minor politicians con-
trol such a board, Smith asked the Legislature to look upon
themselves as the board of directors of a mighty busi-
ness, and then he said:

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MAJOR PURPOSES

"You know any chairman of any directorate in this
State who would make that kind of a report to the direc-
tors, you know what ought to happen to him the minute
he would make that kind of a report — right out the win-
dow, right out into Washington Avenue with him and in
less time than it takes to tell it."

The fact that Smith is essentially, even above his other
attributes, a business man, gives him a strong temptation
to lose his temper at the spectacle presented by a vast busi-
ness like that of the State being run in contempt of all
business principles. However, he is a passionate believer
in democracy and that faith makes him gentle even to its
vices. In the free and easy lecture he gave the joint extra
session in 1925 he said:

"The .only excuse I have to offer for it is that democ-
racy and democratic-republican form of government is so
eternally right that God Almighty just keeps us on our
feet. That is all. That is why we are having a meeting of
the directors to look a little bit into this cost. That is an
element always worthy of taking into consideration: what
it costs. Here is a little statement. The land purchased
in the State forest preserve from December 15, 1917, to
June 19, 1925, cost the State of New York $5,751,943,
and in order to acquire it we paid out in salaries in that
time $397,494.09, and on top of the salaries and ex-
penses, adding it all together, it cost the State of New
York $586,500 to buy $5,000,000 worth of property."

In addressing the Legislature the night of the special

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session, he took up the Republican leader. Senator Knight,
the very center of the political system: "What I am now
to say certainly is nothing personal at all, because I have
known the Senate leader as long as any man in this room
and a little bit longer. He sat over there on that side of
the Assembly Chamber when I was sitting in the middle
aisle. I have been his friend and he is my friend, but
when he speaks as leader he must expect to be checked up
on what he says. He attempted to talk about the Taylor
property on Long Island. If the Senator knows anything
about it, then I am an expert on what ought to happen in
Arcade, the Senator's home town, and I never saw the
place. He said if we were interested in the masses of the
poor people, we would go and get a park near their homes,
and so enhance the value of their property. If the Sen-
ator can name any place for me within a radius of fifty
miles of the City Hall of New York City where you can
buy sixteen hundred acres of woodland with thirty-one
buildings on it, adapted to park purposes, for $250,000, I
;will buy them from him tonight on speculation and I will
get the money before twelve o'clock.

"What a joke it is! What a joke it is! When you know
all the inside facts about these things to listen to a man
up on the Canadian border talking to the good people in
the country about the power of evil in Tammany Hall.
^Why, every Democratic senator and every Democratic
assemblyman at great personal sacrifice to themselves ap-
peared on Capitol Hill and stood with their shoulders to

[254]

MAJOR PURPOSES <

the wheel to carry out a broad plan of park development
to the interests of all the people in the State and while
they were doing that the hidden power for evil was oper-
ating in the ranks of the other forces to destroy whatever
influence they had. The hidden power for evil — that is so
strong an influence on one legislative leader that he said
in the Ten Eyck Hotel in the presence of men that carried
it to me, cWe will lie in the gutter before we will give in
any further to Smith.' That is a nice spirit. There is an
indictment of Republican government. There is the exer-
cise of the hidden power for evil. That man could make
no argument against the park program. He knew nothing
about it 5 all he knew was that the word came from the
hidden power that Smith must not get any more prestige
from Albany by making the Republicans do any more than
he has already made them do."

In vetoing one of the bills attempting to save the parks
from the politicians, the Governor concluded:

"I have considered this subject most carefully with'
members of the State Council of Parks. I have sponsored
their program after assuring myself that they were right
and that they understood what they were doing and that
they were the right people to be entrusted with this great
undertaking. Upon their advice I now again refuse to
accept the Thayer bill and I stick to the principle advo-
cated by the Park Council that no obsolete political agency
should be placed over the park authorities. I have never
been more convinced than I am now after the extraordi-

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nary session that this is th'e right point of view and that
by refusing to compromise the principle we shall win the
victory in the end."

His prophecy was correct. The victory was won in the
Legislature of 1926. The desired legislation was passed.
Today the huge undertaking of seeing ahead, taking over
land for recreation purposes now, and in the future de-
veloping and conducting such parks, is out of politics.
JJnder Smith it is in the hands of the best people that
can be found in the state. Under future governors it will
perhaps sometimes not be so, but the exact quality of their
appointments is a comparatively minor matter. The sys-
tem has been changed. The machinery of the State is now
such that it automatically works for the people, instead of
against them.

As we approached the next great fundamental subject
on our list, water power, we were in some doubt as to
whether it belonged more properly in this chapter or in
Chapter Nine. Certainly it is a national issue. It will be
more and more a national issue as time goes on.

Of one of Smith's speeches on the subject, the New
York Times of December 15, 1926, said: "Governor
Smith's speech on Monday night is a thing which by itself
should be studied by all who wish to know the secret of
his astonishing hold on the people. As a mere intellectual
performance it bears out the characterization of William
Allen White that Governor Smith has the best brain now
being applied to public affairs in this country."

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MAJOR PURPOSES

Under the Governor's leadership much has been accom-
plished, but desperate fighting is still ahead. On May 27,
1927, there was a meeting at Watertown, New York. At
it men prominent in Republican politics and business met
to lay plans for a fight against Smith's conception of the
protection of national resources, including water power.
This meeting was attended by former Speaker
Machold, who has been figuring in our story about reor-
ganization, and by Representative Sweet, also a former
speaker of the Assembly. The purpose of those thus gath-
ered together was to see that the water-power resources
of the State go to private corporations 5 that dams are
built in the Adirondacks Forest Preserve 5 and that the
timber of the same Preserve is made freely accessible to
private interests. It was proposed at the meeting that
$100,000 be raised to educate the public. No doubt much
more than that sum will be raised. Smith in all proba-
bility will be out of the governorship at the end of 1928.
The chances as we write of his being able to get his plans
through in 1928 are none too good. The Governor's last
word to the Legislature of 1927 was a demand that if they
will not accept his plan of a power authority, they at least
take steps to allow a referendum to go before the people
distinguishing between his policy of State ownership and
control, and the Republican policy of private leasing of
water-power resources.

As usual, the easiest way into this subject is through
some of the Governor's popular presentations of it. Speak-

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ing in Flushing on October 27, 1926, in the course of his
campaign against Congressman Mills for the governor-
ship, he said:

"The Republican party has rendered a real service on
the question of the development of our great water-power
resources j they are rendering a real service and they must
get credit for it, but unfortunately they are not render-
ing it to the people of the State of New York. They are
rendering it to a small group of influential Republican
politicians in the upper parts of the State that have a grip
upon the water power resources already developed. They
are cold-blooded and deliberate about it and they openly
say in their platform, 'We favor development of the
State power resources by private individuals on long leases
— fifty-year leases.3 Why, if I could get a lease on any-
thing for fifty years I wouldn't care what it was, I would
say, 'That is mine.'

"On the other hand the Democratic party has a definite,
concrete proposal to make to the people of the State of
New York. The Democratic party proposes the creation
of a water power authority to hold in trust for all the peo-
ple of the State these great power resources and to de-
velop them from the proceeds of the sales of bonds guar-
anteed by the returns from the power development. Well,
the Congressman started out referring to that as Social-
ism. 'Smith, the Socialist.' That didn't take very well.
Funny what you have got to put up with in American
public life. Mills talking from one part of the State says

MAJOR PURPOSES

that 'Smith's plan for water power turns the water power
over to the interests/ and over here in our own borough
the poor old John F. of Bushwick talks about me as the
tool of Wall Street, while Mills is calling me a Socialist.

"I put it up pretty hard to Congressman Mills to ex-
plain to me, if my theory of State development of water
power is socialistic, how he accounts for the movement in
Washington, endorsed by three members of the cabinet
of President Coolidge, that proposes not only to own the
dams and the power houses on the Colorado River, but
proposes to pay for them with the income of the taxpay-
ers of the United States. Why, because the Committee on
Reclamation said to the Congress of the United States
that an undertaking of that kind was on such a broad and
comprehensive scale that nobody but the Federal gov-
ernment itself should own and operate it. But in our State
we have got an entirely different policy, and a man in New
York that suggests that we follow what is approved by the
secretary of the treasury, the secretary of commercej and
the secretary of the interior, is branded a Socialist.

"I am fighting for the people of the State of New
York. I am fighting to keep the hands of the power
barons off the last great water-power resources that re-
main in the control of the people themselves. What did
Governor Hughes have in his mind when he suggested
that after the first of next January no grant of water
power be effective unless it is first signed by the Gov-
ernor? Why wasn't that made effective the first of last

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UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

July? You just keep your eye on them in Albany, and
take my word for it, no matter what happens next Tues-
day, there will be an attempt to give away some of this
power between now and the first of January, and that is
the reason why I am not going very far away from New
York after Tuesday."

And the attempt was made. He was right.

Just a month before their official death, the State Water
Power Commission, which was about to expire under the
reorganization, indicated its intention to lease the State's
enormous hydro-electric resources on the St. Lawrence
River to a private corporation. They published the pro-
posed lease in the newspapers. The Governor requested
that action be withheld until the new Commission should
go into office, January i, 1927. He made this request first
in a telegram, then in a letter. In the letter he said:

"The Legislature of 1926 in reorganizing the State
government, upon the unanimous recommendation of a
commission headed by former Governor Hughes, so reor-
ganized the Water Power Commission as to place it under
the control of the Governor and further specifically pro-
vided that no lease or permit for the development of water
power should be granted without the consent of the
Governor."

The New York State Water Power Commission was
scheduled to meet on December 8, about a week after this
letter was written, and to act on applications for permis-
sion to construct a two hundred million dollar hydro*

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MAJOR PURPOSES

electric plant on the St. Lawrence River. It was surmised
that the award would be made to the Frontier Corpora-
tion, which represents joint stocks of the General Electric
Company, the Aluminum Company of America, and E. I.
du Pont de Nemours & Company. There was also an
application from the American Super Power Corporation,
controlled by Henry L. Dougherty, and representing a
group of about one hundred gas and electric-light and oil
companies.

Governor Smith went to the telephone in his Albany
office and called up Samuel Untermyer in New York.
Untermyer had for many years enjoyed a national repu-
tation for the knowledge and skill with which he could
expose the inside of business abuses. He went over the
proposed leases with Smith and together they fished out
all the jokers. Untermyer was also of use in capturing
headlines and stirring up the public.

The papers stated that the project involved not only
the $250,000,000 that it was supposed to involve, but
$1,000,000,000 of ultimate value.

At the same time that he was protesting against this at-
tempted grab, the Governor was stopping the Water Con-
trol Commission, another administrative body about to go
out of existence, from granting an application for a river
regulating district in the Salmon River. Incidental to river
regulation is the development of power. In his letter on
this subject he said:

"I believe that it has tieen established before your com-

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

mission that the Conservation Act is intended to protect
the public welfare, including public health and safety, and
is not for power purposes. No requirements of public
health and safety have been shown on the Salmon River
sufficient to justify the district. I am informed that the
power companies will receive 12,000 horsepower, repre-
senting an increased earning over their present rights
amounting to approximately $250,000 a year, while the
State, contributing one-third of the land required under
the provisions of the Conservation Law as it now stands,
will receive in return only $720 a year.

"The setting up of a river regulating district on the
Salmon River is in effect to bring about what was sought to
be done by the attempt to amend section 7 of article VIII
of the constitution. This amendment the people over-
whelmingly defeated in 1923."

So keen was the interest aroused that the two leading
companies applying for the St. Lawrence River power
withdrew their applications. The Salmon River application
made by the Malone Light and Power Company was also
quickly withdrawn. These companies are closely inter-
linked with the power trusts which control the entire
power situation on the eastern seaboard $ and this is one
specific illustration among many of the fact that in trying
to work out a solution for the proper control of the new
natural resource that lies in falling water, Smith was deal-
ing with a question that is essentially national. The Goy-

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MAJOR PURPOSES

ernor pointed out that this application, if granted, would
be a mere entering wedge.

The constructive solution that the Governor is now de-
fending did not come to him all in a minute. Naturally, in
the many years he has put on the subject, with a mind more
given to solution than to aimless agitation, he has passed
from the negative task of opposing exploitation to the
positive accomplishment of constructing machinery that
would protect the State and at the same time make possi-
ble the use of private capital. Interest in conservation in
this country began under McKinley. It was taken up and
further popularized under Roosevelt. In a speech in a
campaign in which the son of President Roosevelt was
running for Governor, the former President was brought
into the situation by Smith as follows:

"It is a rather strange thing that just ten years ago this
very month Theodore Roosevelt, the father of the Re-
publican candidate for Governor, speaking in the city of
Watertown, had the following to say:

" cYou have here in this section a most valuable asset
in your natural water-power force. You have elected too
many men in the past who have taken what belongs to the
nation. Coal and oil barons cannot compare to power
barons. Do not let them get a monopoly on what belongs
to this State. There has been a persistent effort to give pri-
vate corporations control of the water power of the coun-
try. There has been an effort to give that control to the

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UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

Aluminum Trust. If the Aluminum Trust makes its
money fairly, all right. But when it gets money and
power by taking the natural resources of the State, it is
time for us to object. Do not give up your water power for
a promise of quick development. We are poor citizens if
we allow the things worth most to get into the hands of
the few.'

"President Roosevelt knew exactly what he was talking
about, because the Long Sault Development Company was
no other than the Pittsburgh Aluminum Company, and
the applications now on file before the present Water
Power Commission also come, under different names,
however, directly from the Pittsburgh Aluminum Com-
pany."

When we remember that water power was one of
Smith's most intense interests in the Constitutional Con-
vention of 1915, and that his interests at that time were
based on previous thought, we realize that no subject,
not even the protection of the laboring man, made an
earlier impression on his mind.

In 1923 he was active for the defeat of that consti-
tutional amendment which gave the power companies an
entering wedge for private development in the Adiron-
dack Preserves. All the time he was struggling more and
more for a working solution. Many a time he has said in
speeches that it is futile to criticize existing practices with-
out offering better plans yourself. The plan which was
taking shape in his mind seemed to him to provide for

[264]

MAJOR PURPOSES

efficient operation of the power for a control of the cost of
that power at the source 5 and also to cut out difficulties
that arise from rate regulation by commissions. Those
commissions do not give full satisfaction. Rate regulation
is based on valuation of property. Today the Supreme
Court of the United States is divided on the proper basis
of valuing the property of public utility companies.

The Governor's device avoids the problem of regula-
tion by commissions and protects the consumer by provid-
ing for a contract for the sale of power based on the cost
of development at the source.

Probably the most careful presentation of this plan is
the one made by the Governor at a dinner given by The
Survey Associates on December 13, 1926. The audience
was made up of Republicans and Democrats, leading men
in big power interests, and advocates of government own-
ership. Among the electrical magnates there were repre-
sented the General Electric Company, the Edison Electric
Company, the Frontier Corporation, and the Northeastern
Power Company. The Governor expressed his readiness
to answer questions but nobody asked him any. The Survey
had wished to make a debate of the meeting, but when
it approached prominent men with opposing views, it
found none eager to meet the Governor.

The fight with the Water Power Commission was just
won. It was well understood by the people assembled at
the Survey dinner. Smith opened as follows:

"I take the question of water-power development in

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UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

the State of New York to be not & political matter at all.
I take it to be a business matter of great concern to all
the people of the State regardless of how they voted on
the second of November. . . .

"In accordance with our treaty with the Dominion of
Canada, there is available on the St. Lawrence the devel-
opment of probably 1,500,000 horsepower. I should like
to translate that into terms that would be understood by
everybody. The Edison Company's waterside station at
the foot of Thirty-sixth Street is lighting the whole
theatrical district. It is making possible the glare of upper
Broadway. It is supplying the electric current for prac-
tically every one south of Fifty-ninth Street. It is able to
take the peak load in the Christmas season. And its pos-
sible maximum development is only 300,000 horsepower.
Now, as 300,000 horsepower is the whole lighting of
Manhattan, figure for yourself the possibilities of
1,500,000 or 2,000,000 horsepower on the St. Lawrence
and the Niagara Rivers, with perhaps 500,000 more in
other rivers 5 power enough not only for our own needs,
but also, I think I can safely say, enough to send over
State lines into the New England States. Here we have it
today, under State control and under State ownership."

Later in the speech he stated his basic principle in these
simple words:

"I suggest that we adopt the fundamental principle that
we are going to regard these water powers and these pos-
sible water-power developments as the property of the

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MAJOR PURPOSES

State that must not be alienated, even by lease, for any
period of time."

In the course of clarifying his Ideas and casting his
imagination into the future, the work he had done when
he was a private citizen in New York for two years, as a
member by appointment of Governor Miller to the com-
mission to study the best method of handling the port
facilities of New York, proved to be of great assistance to
him. He referred to it incidentally in the following part
of his Survey talk:

"You can sit around the table and talk all the fantastic
ideas about government that you like, but if the man on
the street isn't with you, it doesn't go. And you will bring
him with you and you will bring him into line only when
you are able to show him every side of the question, and
one side that he wants to know is why he shouldn't own
it as well as the man that seeks it privately.

"Some one may say that you can't make a comparison
between the Port of New York Authority and a pro-
posed water power authority because the Port of New
York is an interstate proposition. Well, then, let's take the
Port of Albany 5 that is entirely within our own State. We
have set up there by law an authority that will go into the
market and borrow $25,000,000, supplementing an ap-
propriation of a like amount from the Federal govern-
ment, for deepening the channel between Castleton and
Albany. Where is that money coming from?. Not from
the city of Albany, or the State of New York, or the

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UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

Federal government, but from the people that believe
that a development of the Port of Albany will yield
sufficient money in return to amortize the bonds and pay
the interest on them. The same thing applies to the
bridges between Staten Island and New Jersey and over
the Hudson River. The people of our State and of our
country have not been slow to buy on faith bonds for an
enterprise of which the financial ability has been demon-
strated."

This speech, like most of his notable speeches, relies
to an entirely negligible degree on eloquence or appeal
to emotions. It is an instance of the degree of simplicity
that a real master of his subject can bring out of compli-
cated facts.

"I ask the Legislature to set up a power authority that
by its nature will fit into the same picture that Charles
Evans Hughes put the port authority into. He said, <It is
not a branch of the government 5 it is an instrument of
it.J I ask for an instrument of government that will study
this question and bring into the Legislature a plan. I ask
that that plan be engineeringly — if that is a proper word
— and financially sound, and that the men who suggest
it be able to show us where to get the money to carry it
out and be able to show a contract for distribution of the
power that will bring sufficient return to the State to
amortize the bonds and pay interest on them during their
life.

"We are in the power business now. The wheels are

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MAJOR PURPOSES

humming in two State-owned power plants where we are
generating electrical energy and selling it to the Cohoes
Light and Power Company and to the Adirondack Light
and Power Company — and we are getting enough money
from it to run the plant and give us ten per cent, return
on what we paid for the machinery.

"Isn't it a strange thing that nobody raised this ques-
tion of socialism when Governor Miller suggested the
State construction of these power houses? It is one of the
funny things about our government. While he was rec-
ommending that, he was put in the reactionary class.
Then I asked to amplify his ideas, and I was put down
as a Socialist.

"What is my definite plan? Let us set up the power
authority first by law, and declare by law that we propose
to make this a body corporate and politic with the right
to issue its own securities against the proven economic
value of the power that it proposes to produce. Let it go
to work. Let us for the first time have a State agency
looking into it instead of a State agency waiting for some-
body else to bring the program to them. If, when they
arrive before the Legislature in 1928, they say that it is
impossible, then let's talk about private development, be-
cause then the public mind will be prepared for it. They
will know from a competent authority that the State is
unable to do it."

A few weeks after this careful statement of his policy,
the Governor had a bill introduced in the 1927 Legisla-

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UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

ture embodying his ideas* It created a power authority.
In that power authority it vested title to the power re-
sources of the State. This group was to report a complete
plan for financing, managing, and controlling water power
development under its own authority. The three mem-
bers of the body were to be named by the Governor.

At first, the opposition party met this proposal defi-
antly. They openly announced that the Governor could
forget his plan and there would be no compromise either.
In a short time, however, the situation changed. Charles
D. Hilles, National Republican Committeeman for New
(York, went down to Washington. When he returned to
New York, the temper of the opposition altered. Com-
promise jsras sought. The Republicans introduced a bill
creating a commission, merely to look into the general
question of whether such authority should be established,
or whether the developing and control of water power
should be by public or private agencies,

The Governor flat-f ootedly refused this suggestion. At
first he gave thought to the possibility that it might do
no harm if he could name the members of the commis-
sion. Further thought convinced him that there was no
use in giving up a position he had reached after the fullest
reflection, in favor of a method in which he was con-
vinced there was no real meaning. This was a somewhat
difficult problem for him to decide.

It is only fair to business men of the country to say
that some influential ones among the power magnates are

[270]

MAJOR PURPOSES

not opposing his struggle to establish a principle that will
protect the public adequately without giving up the use
of private capital. In the main, however, the lines are
drawn for a severe fight between him and the lobbies that
represent the power companies of the United States. The
power of the St. Lawrence River would not be of na-
tional importance if it stood alone. It is essentially a por-
tion of the hydro-electric system that runs all along the
northeastern coast and is expected, when developed, to
furnish power not only for what is called the East, but
also for the South and Middle West.

Moreover, the importance of the thought the Gov-
ernor has given to this subject does not stop with what
lies inside of New York State, even as that power is con-
nected up with the rest of the hydro-electric system of
the East. It is a model. According to the victory or defeat
of his project, thought will be affected one way or the
other in connection with such enterprises as Bowlder Dam,
Muscle Shoals, and possible power projects on the Mis-
sissippi River.

The Governor has frequently referred to the training
he got as a member of the New York Port Authority
toward his solution of the water-power problem, and per-
haps we should discuss that project more fully than it was
set forth a few pages above.

The Port of New York Authority, as an agency of the
States of New York and New Jersey, formed by treaty
between them, is empowered as a body corporate and

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

politic to issue its own tax-exempt securities against
revenue-producing improvements, such as toll bridges,
tunnels, inland terminals, or any other aids to the com-
mercial development of the port district. Smith was one
of three commissioners from each State who are in charge
of the work. He was impressed by the possibilities of
such an organization for the promotion of great public
undertakings, often far too costly for taxpayers' budgets.
He was quick to see its application to water-power de-
velopment. One of the influences retarding public control
of water-power development was its great cost. This
seemed insurmountable until Smith proposed this plan of
control by a power authority.

The resemblance between the Port Authority and the
water-power solution is not in the nature of the problem,
but in the nature of the power granted and the relation
between private capital and State power.

In a speech on October 26, 1926, about two bridges
which are being built by the Port Authority, the Gov-
ernor came back to the relation he frequently makes be-
tween what the State wishes to undertake and what the
national government is willing to undertake. He said:

"There is a project pending in Washington to build a
dam over the Colorado River to be known as the Bowlder
Dam. When that dam is built it is proposed, by a report
of the Committee on Reclamation, to build a power plant
and to develop electrical energy and that power plant
would be built by the United States Government and

[272]

MAJOR PURPOSES

paid for with the money o£ the taxpayers of the United
States. Now, when I spoke about that in Monroe County
the other night, Congressman Mills came out the next
day and thought he was going to dispose of it by saying,
'Who wants a reclamation project?' Of course this is what
the project is. But that is not the answer to the United
States Government going into the business of developing
electrical energy. The energy is a by-product from the
spilling of the water through a canal with sufficient fall
to create electrical force turning a turbine. It doesn't
make any difference what kind of a project it is. The
figures are set forth as to the amount of money that the
government proposes to pay for that electrical-power
plant — $125,000,000, of which $41,500,000 is to build
a dam, $31,000,000 is the cost of the canal for the water
to run from, $31,500,000 is the estimated cost of the
power. The power plant is machinery and the building
in which to install the machinery for generating the elec-
trical energy, and the Committee on Reclamation, in its
report to the United States Senate, said: 'This project is
of so much importance to the people of the United States
that no other agency but the government itself should be
entrusted with it'} and it isn't half as big as the St. Law-
rence River project, but nevertheless it is of sufficient
importance to be cared for by the Government itself."

This is the kind of analogy that he has more than once
pointed out in relation to water-power development, and
also when he has argued that the power he wishes to have

[273]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

given to the State Housing Bank is not greater than the
national government has given to the Federal Farm Loan
Banks for the extension of rural credits.

By the time he became a member of the Port Authority
he had been two years in Albany, and the reorganization
commission had been another factor in the development
of his thought. When he took his position with the
United States Trucking Company in New York he could
not have looked forward to coming into such close quar-
ters with one of the most difficult questions he was to
face. As a business man, he had obvious value. He was
an organizer and conciliator and both of these qualities
were needed in bringing harmonious work out of the dif-
ferent trucking companies that were brought together in
the United States Trucking Company. He was also a
business-getter, able to sit at his desk and ring up a friend
and cheerfully and easily suggest that there was no reason
why the United States Trucking Company should not do
part of his work.

When Governor Miller put him on the Port Authority,
these qualities were immediately applied to a broad field.
The railroads were part of the plan. In a group of this
kind, each member tends to do more and more what
he can do best. Smith emerged as the person who was
best able to deal with separate groups of experts. When
he went to a meeting with such men as President Rea of
the Pennsylvania Railroad, President Willard of the Bal-
timore and Ohio, President Underwood of the Erie, and

[274]

MAJOR PURPOSES

President Smith of the New York Central, he amazed
these men as he had amazed the members of the Consti-
tutional Convention by the minuteness and accuracy and
technical quality of his understanding. Usually a politi-
cian, however able, will have to confine himself to gen-
eral principles in dealing with such subjects as railroads.
Smith could talk to the railroad men in their own lan-
guage.

It was the same with the engineers of the Port Au-
thority staff and it was the same with the financiers.
Smith's mind readily accepted the need of cooperation
between the two States. It seized upon the central idea of
an Authority which is a body politic and corporate, an
instrumentality of the State to issue bonds to private in-
vestors upon the approved economic value of the project
for which the bonds are issued. It was a delight to him to
take such a general idea and follow it into all its difficul-
ties as it worked out. All the railroad facilities around the
Port of New York buzzed with life in his mind. Those
switching tracks in New Jersey that required joint use by
different railroads instead of a separate use under the
previous system, the coordination of freight boats and
tugs in the river, all was easy to him and had to be made
convincing to the interests concerned. Also, enough such
details had to be conveyed to the general public to create
the necessary political energy behind the movement to
formulate a comprehensive plan for the development of
the Port of New York.

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UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

In most of this work, in a general way, he was
showing the qualities he had shown in the Committee
on Ways and Means, in the Convention, and at Al-
bany, but in the method of solving the relations be-
tween the public and private interests, from the point of
view of finance, he was getting something new to him and
something entirely essential to his struggle with the
water-power question. The Port Authority, therefore,
water power, and State housing must all, more or less, be
thought about together. They differ in this, that the
water power plan, like the Port Authority plan, calls
for no other motive for investors except the desire to
have the normal return on a security that is entirely safe.
In housing another element comes in, which perhaps
might have been removed had Smith won his State Bank
and the use of State credit. Housing betterment at present
depends too much on good will, and the good will so far
has been forthcoming only to a limited extent. As the
Governor said at a meeting of the State Housing Board
in December, 1926:

"We want the men who can afford to do it, who have
the money lying idle, or in some other investment that is
paying very little, to be satisfied with five per cent, on a
gilt-edged security on the land of Manhattan Island. We
want those men to know that when they undertake this,
they will not only be getting a gilt-edged security, but
will be doing something for the benefit of humanity, for
men and women and above all for the children.3'

£276]

MAJOR PURPOSES

The four major topics selected for this chapter are
sufficient in themselves to indicate those larger currents
of thought that have turned the East Side politician into
a statesman. These programs fit each into the other and
each supplements the other. Without scrapping the old
system of government, and building a new, the work
could not be carried on. That new government is prac-
tically finished. Without a human place to live, there is
no worth in life. At that point a question mark remains.
Without a chance to go out and form at least a little
friendship with free nature, a heavy wrong rests on the
shoulders of the poor. From their shoulders that wrong
in New York State has been lifted. New powers which
ought to be new blessings are coming into existence. Who
shall enjoy them.^ Who shall control them?, To that
question the Governor gives answer in what he has
thought out for the control of the advantages of water
power.

[277]

Chapter VIII

IDEALS AND BUSINESS

WE now understand Smith's major purposes. They can
be put in this way. The government of the State is an
instrument for the general welfare. Questions properly
political enter only to a minor degree. If the State is to
be used as an effective tool for the general welfare it must
be remodeled. It must be simplified. Responsibility must
be concentrated. A proper division must be made between
the responsibility of the Legislature and the responsibility
of the executive. Not only must existing obligations, such
as the care of the unfortunate in State institutions, be
brought up to date, and kept abreast of increasing popu-
lation, but many new obligations must be undertaken.
Education must be improved. Bad housing must be looked
in the face and recognized as a menace to health, morals,
and happiness. An unrelenting policy of protection and
conservation of natural resources must be followed up
and applied to the great new asset of water power.

In putting through such major undertakings the great-
est tool of all is popular understanding. The public must
not be deceived about what things are going to cost. If
it knows exactly what is proposed, and believes that the

[278]

IDEALS AND BUSINESS

proposal will be carried out with a view to nothing but
efficiency, its judgment will be correct.

The Governor's persistent policy of turning compli-
cated figures into realities capable of reaching the popu-
lar mind has been carried out not only in messages,
speeches, and debates, but also in regukr accountings to
the people, published at the beginning of each fiscal year,
or some time in July. In these accountings he explains in
detail the appropriations made and the reasons for them.
At the beginning of the 1923 statement, he said:

"There is nothing less interesting to our people than
financial reports because, as prepared by bookkeepers and
accountants, they are not understandable to the ordinary
man. To comprehend them thoroughly, one must have
not only an understanding of the government of the State
itself, but must be able to comprehend technical terms
used in financial reports. For that reason, I will endeavor
to explain appropriations of this year in such a manner as
to make them easily understandable to every one."

So rare is the ability to make complicated figures inter-
esting that we never hear the end of references to the fact
that Gladstone was able to hold the attention of the
House of Commons for hours at a time while he dis-
cussed the budget. If it is difficult to hold even the House
of Commons on such a subject, it is necessarily much more
difficult to seize and hold the attention of the general
public. The ordinary method is not to make it as easy as
possible for the public to function in these matters, but

[279]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

to make it difficult even for a skilled lawyer or business
man to get at the substance of the questions discussed.
Talking about the situation in New York City and the
lack of interest shown by the public, the New York Times
of August 3, 1927, said:

"The present system, instead of encouraging them to
take an interest in city finances, is a powerful inducement
for them not to do so. The annual budget is an appalling
document. In some of its metamorphoses it must weigh
not less than ten pounds. Nobody takes the trouble to sit
down and analyze it in any intelligible fashion. General
Lord, the Federal director, has shown that it can be done.
So has Governor Smith. In fact, even back in the days
when the Governor was a member of the Assembly at
Albany, he was able time and again to refute the doctrine
that government finances could not be made interesting.
Discussion of the annual appropriation bill used to be the
signal for a general exodus from the Assembly Chamber.
But not so when *AP Smith took the floor. He could
keep the members in their seats hours on end with his
masterly dissection of that measure."

Of all the elements going to make up an efficient State
economy, the one that has required the most talent in
exposition has been the executive budget. Its opponents
held that, even if the methods of budget making did need
improving, it could be accomplished by legislative enact-
ment and there was no necessity for "freezing it into the
constitution." Even as able a student of such matters as

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IDEALS AND BUSINESS

Governor Miller took this position. Smith, on the con-
trary, took the stand that those who supported this point
of view, or referred to the budget system introduced in
Washington as equivalent to an executive budget, were
either insincere or incapable of understanding what was
at stake. He went over successfully the ground that had
been gone over unsuccessfully by those who were fight-
ing for an executive budget in Washington, beginning in
the administration of President Taf t. What they got in
Washington was a budget which did something to re-
duce confusion, but nothing to concentrate in the execu-
tive department the responsibility that belongs there. He
showed, also, how failure to make the State executive
budget constitutional had given rise to many changes in
budget making, but always fell short of the real objec-
tive, to place responsibility for expenditures, for all time,
definitely upon the Governor. He frequently illustrated
the futility of an executive budget that did not have the
weight of constitutional sanction behind it. In fact, the
executive budget as practiced in Albany was the butt of
many a newspaperman's stunt dinner, and Smith likes to
tell of one such dinner which took place at about the time
a hotel chef had been arrested in Chicago for poisoning
the soup. The diners at the Albany dinner were about to
eat their soup when a policeman rushed in crying, "Stop,
stop, the soup is poisoned." Another policeman haled a
frightened chef before the diners and he was asked to

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

state at once what he had put into the soup. He answered,
"The executive budget."

To the charge that the executive could abuse the power
conferred by the proposed method, Smith has always
made the essentially democratic answer that you must
rely on the ability of the people to govern themselves by
electing a few officials worthy of confidence. The public
must be counted on to select men for the Legislature who
can and will do the work to be expected of a group of
citizens coming together every few months, who are not
experts, but are interested in general principles. From the
executive department should be expected the work that is
demanded from a successful big private corporation, and
the Legislature should not undertake to interfere in the
details of the working of this corporation any more than
the board of directors of a big railroad company should
occupy itself with mere executive details.

A lucid statement of the principle involved, voted on
by the people in the election of 1927, we take from the
Governor's annual message of 1925:

"The executive budget does not in the slightest degree
decrease the power of the Legislature. It provides only
for a more responsible method for the exercise of that
power. There is nothing new or revolutionary about a
proposal placing upon the Executive himself the duty in
the first instance of certifying to the Legislature the
amount required for the fixed and definite expenses of

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IDEALS AND BUSINESS

maintenance of the various departments of the govern-
ment. There is no reason that I can see why there should
not be put upon the Executive the further responsibility
of explaining his proposals to the Legislature in detail.
There is also no reason why the Legislature should make
additions to these sums or indulge in new activities until
provision has first been made for the absolutely necessary
expenses of government. This method follows the policy
of the wise and prudent housewife who puts aside the
money for rent, light, heat, the butcher, and the baker,
before she contracts for a new piano, a victrola, or a radio.
It is plain everyday good business, and stands out as such,
when compared with the present system, or rather, lack
of system, which now characterizes the appropriation of
public moneys."

The more important the purpose is, the more likely we
are to face the difficulty of how we are to pay for the
carrying out of our ideals. Smith has never allowed to
any subject a higher place than he has given to education..
He has rejoiced publicly and often in the increased ap-
propriations for education, but these increased expenses
have to be met. If we are to go ahead, the ideal purpose
and the business problem must be kept closely related.

His early work in this field was summed up thus by the
Governor in a speech on October 31, 1924:

"The public record discloses that as far back as 1911,
as leader of the Assembly, I fought for the equal pay

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UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

bill for school teachers. It discloses also that all during
my occupancy of the governorship I took the lead in the
fight for increased compensation for school teachers. In
1924 I signed the largest appropriations in the history of
the State, for public school education. I have backed up
the State Department of Education in every proposal
that ever came from it for the betterment of the public
school system of this State.

"When a condition growing out of the war left the
City of New York short of school accommodations for
her army of school children, I suggested to the Legisla-
ture at a special session in 1920 that the corporate stock
of the city for school construction purposes should not
come within the meaning of the pay-as-you-go law, in
order that New York City might make up for the stop-
page of the school-building program during the war, and
hasten the time, as far as it was humanly possible, when
a seat would be provided for every child in the public
school system of this city."

In 1925 he appointed what was known as the Friedsam
Commission. This was the result of a conference he called
at Albany, of educators, men and women interested in
education, and business men, to discuss problems of financ-
ing and administering education in large cities, including
sources of taxation. On January i, 1926, his annual mes-
sage urged cooperation with this commission. He also
sent a special message on April 8 of the same year, trans-
mitting the report of the commission and urging the leg-

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IDEALS AND BUSINESS

islation it proposed. The report urged an increase in the
amount of school moneys appropriated by the State to
the various localities, so as to raise the standards of edu-
cation. It called for an addition to the State budget of
$16,500,000 the first year, and a gradual increase each
year until the additions should total $30,000,000. The
Legislature rejected this legislation. It passed instead a
teachers' salary increase bill that would have called for
an increased expenditure of $17,000,000 in New York
City for teachers' salaries. They knew that this bill would
have to be vetoed because New York City had no funds
available to meet the increase since the Friedsam bill
failed to pass. The intent was to embarrass Smith with
the teachers in a campaign year. Of course the Board of
Estimate of New York advised the Governor to veto the
bill. On January 21, 1927, Smith again urged the pas-
sage of the Friedsam legislation and this time it passed

In 1925, after many years of struggle, Smith had suc-
ceeded in getting an additional appropriation of $9,000,-
ooo in the State budget, for rural schools. In 1923 he
said in his annual message:

"I am satisfied that the children in these sections of the
State are not getting from the State the same opportuni-
ties for education that are accorded to the children in the
cities. We owe it to all children alike and we should try
to give it.

"It might well be said that the inadequate school fa-
cilities now in farming communities present an additional

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UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

reason why people leave the farm and move to the cities.
Every father and mother instinctively do their best to
give their children all that the State affords in education.
It is the safeguard of the State and of the Nation. Any-
body desiring to have a proper understanding of the
necessity for an education need only talk to the man who
was denied it."

In 1924 he urged at length a revision of the system of
rural schools, and carried it successfully in 1925.

Smith never carried his theory of reorganization of the
government to the extreme of being unwilling to leave
the administration of the Department of Education to a
Board of Regents elected by the Legislature who appoint
a Commissioner of Education as executive head. The
misrepresentation of his position on this subject, due to
a clerical error, and a subsequent misstatement by his
opponent, are referred to in Chapter Nine.

After reviewing his general record on education up to
October 3, 1924, when the editorial was published, the
New York Times said:

"New York State is still somewhere near the bottom
of the list in the relative amount contributed by the State
out of its Treasury for the support of the public schools.
As it is, the State has still a duty to discharge to its
schools, and Governor Smith, who has given an earnest
of what his policy will be by what he has already done,
is best able to undertake it."

As we have progressed with the main story, and studied

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IDEALS AND BUSINESS

such high points as the Committee on Ways and Means,
the Constitutional Convention, the Port Authority and
the reorganization of the State government, we have
more than once touched the relation between progress
and efficiency. Often this subject has appeared as the
simplest kind of opposition between efficiency and non-
partisanship on the one hand, and traditional honest graft ;
on the other. Sometimes it has not been so simple. One
of the Governor's hard and successful fights was over
income tax reduction in 1925. It was inevitable, with the
intensity of public feeling at the time, that party politics
should enter into this controversy on both sides, especially
as the national administration was making its main appeal
on tax reduction. The Governor had to go to the people
and prove that the State could afford to make a cut in the
State income tax. He had been supporting a more equi-
table distribution of the income tax that lessened the
burden on the less well-to-do. The main fight in 1925
was whether the State could afford to repeat the
twenty-five per cent, general cut which it had already
made in 1924. This controversy had so much politics in
it that it perhaps deserves only a minor mention in a book
intended to deal with matters well above the exigencies
of party politics. The Governor was at least as shrewd as
any of his opponents, and he had the advantage over
them, as always, of knowing everything about the, busi-
ness of the State.

The whole session of 1925 had been a succession of

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stormy struggles over the Governor's program, culmi-
nating in the attempt to block tax reduction. There had
been protests of willingness to cooperate on both sides.
The Governor and the legislative leaders were constantly
accusing one another of failure to do so. At the dinner of
the political reporters in New York, the Albany corre-
spondents staged a skit that will long be remembered.
The scene was the Governor's secretary's office at the
Capitol, which is an anteroom to the Governor's private
office. The newspapermen were gathered there in a fright-
ened group listening to the fearful sounds that came from
the Governor's office. Crashes, fist-fights, explosions, all
followed each other in quick succession. One of the re-
porters awesomely announced that a conference was going
on between the Governor and the Republican leaders.
Suddenly all grew quiet. The reporters were sure it por-
tended nothing short of the death of the Governor. Sud-
denly there appeared, in the doorway of the inner room,
the Governor himself. In this instance Governor Smith,
unknown to any one in advance, except the actors in the
skit, played the part himself. He had his coat off and his
sleeves rolled up. He strolled down to the center of the
stage and nonchalantly turned down his sleeves and put
on his coat with the ease and command of the finished
actor. The reporters looked on amazed. He smiled
broadly and announced, "The Republicans have decided
to cooperate." He had not only acted in the play, but had
helped with huge enjoyment to rehearse and stage it.

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IDEALS AND BUSINESS

His vetoes have inevitably had the force of knowledge
behind them. He is able to catch a joker. He never takes
the word of the chairman of a financial committee of the
Legislature that an appropriation bill is all right. He
never lets "pork" get by him. It is quite impossible, with
him as Governor, for local politicians to keep preelection
promises 5 to use the public treasury for aimless local im-
provements. Under Colonel Greene, as we have already
seen, the highways and the canals, huge sources of sus-
tenance for deserving politicians, have altogether lost
that attribute. On his very first encounter as Governor
with an appropriation bill, in 1919, he cut out $2,185,-
343.56. His statements are usually brief, such as, "This
item is disapproved because it creates an unnecessary po-
sition," or "because the work proposed is unnecessary."
He has occasionally caught the Legislature passing the
same bill twice in a session in the hope that, if vetoed
once, it might be undiscovered a second time. He fre-
quently tells of other governors fooled this way, and
especially of items concealed in the general appropriation
bill that had been vetoed in some other form.

A complicated and difficult question of fundamental
economy is raised by the old question of the Barge
Canal, formerly the Erie Canal, and it is not settled. It
required some boldness on the part of the Governor to
make a proposal in his 1925 message that the value of the
Canal to the State be looked into. There was an imme-
diate outbreak of barking that he was trying to help the

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railroads, a charge that hardly deserves comment. He has
always been an enthusiastic believer in water transit, and
is disappointed that business in New York, including no-
tably the farmers' business, does not take all possible ad-
vantage of the Canal. Facts are facts, however, and when
he put Colonel Greene in his present position he indicated
a completely ruthless approach to the transportation prob-
lems of the State.

At his request, a commission to study the canal situa-
tion was appointed by the Legislature of 1925. It pre-
sented a preliminary report in 1926 which did not con-
tain much that was new or constructively helpful.

In his annual message of 1927 he gave the Legislature
information about the tonnage, and recommended nego-
tiation with the Federal government for an ail-American
shipping canal via the Oswego-Hudson River route. He
made a similar suggestion when he visited President
Coolidge in the summer of 1926 in the Adirondacks. But
he had also discussed with the President the problems of
a water supply for New York City. The President spent
most of the time in silence, but as the Governor was
leaving, Mr. Coolidge said: "Governor, if the reporters
ask what we talked about, tell them you tried to sell me
the Barge Canal, and I asked you, 'Why don't you sell it
to New York City for a water supply?' " The resolution
for an ail-American shipping canal was passed by both
parties.

Undoubtedly the reason the Canal is not better patron-

[290]

IDEALS AND BUSINESS

ized by shippers is that railroad service is quicker and
in other ways better, even though it costs more. In the
prosperous conditions of this country, a shipper is willing
to pay for services that come directly to his factory, and
what he pays for convenience and speed he can charge up
to the consumer or the farmer. The Governor, however,
is not satisfied, and the problem of distribution, especially
as it affects the farmer, is still working busily in his mind.

He knows that if there were a greater demand for
water transportation, private capital would furnish boats
enough. He also knows that, even in the past unsatisfac-
tory condition, the Canal has played its part in keeping
down railroad rates. As those rates are now controlled by
the Interstate Commerce Commission, the function of the
Canal has lost some of its importance, but the Governor
thinks it likely that with the inevitable increase in indus-
try, and in the amount of shipping through New York,
interest in water transportation may grow greater.

If the Governor believes that better use of transpor-
tation facilities would help the farmer, he is equally con-
vinced that centralized and efficient management of the
Department of Farms and Markets would help the
farmer also. He is thoroughly of the opinion that rural
politics, in concerning themselves with small local po-
litical benefits, have stood in the way of any centralized
and efficient work for the agricultural interests of the
State.

In a special message in his first term, referring to the

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Department of Farms and Markets, he said that it was
necessary "that the department initiate movements look-
ing toward stimulation of production and a solution of
the question of distribution."

Also in his first term in a speech before the New York
State Agricultural Society, he said:

"The $250,000 appropriated by the State to the various
county fairs is well spent if it serves no other purpose
except a week of recreation for women and children who
live in the country, but they could attend the fair and agri-
cultural education could retain its place just the same.
There is no reason why the horse race and the perform-
ing bear and the frankfurter man should be the whole
show. They have their places, but until you have intelli-
gent direction in your county fairs, you are wasting time
and money so far as education is concerned, so far as any
effort on the part of the State for the promotion of agri-
culture is concerned. You are wasting money, and I speak
from experience. In 1918, the fairs of 1918, I was one
of the large side-shows. I was advertised ahead of time
and billed ahead of time. <We have with us today the
Tammany candidate for Governor' — a drawing card. It
meant something for the gate receipts. I was perfectly
willing to offer myself for exhibition, and I, therefore,
speak of our county fairs with some knowledge of what
takes place there.

"When you take the Department of Agriculture and
the Department of Markets out of politics you will find

[292]

IDEALS AND BUSINESS

that the heads of the bureaus will be men with some pe-
culiar qualifications, some peculiar training, either in ex-
perience or education, to man these bureaus. Is that the
case today? Everybody in this room knows it is not. There
is no use fooling ourselves about it. If I was asked what
I would do about it, I would say this: 'That if the Leg-
islature is willing, I will stand for a lump sum appro-
priation made to the Department of Agriculture for its
reorganization from top to bottom and allow some men
who understand the business to reorganize that big de-
partment from top to bottom and let us have some con-
fidence in it.' "

The best statement perhaps on the subject of secondary
schools of agriculture was made by the Governor to his
cabinet on February 9, 1927:

"The next thing is what is going to be the State's
policy with regard to the future of our secondary schools
of agriculture? That is a problem that this cabinet has got
to take up in man fashion and wrestle with it, because it
is loaded to the hilt with political dynamite. It is all poli-
tics and it always has been politics. It isn't all one kind
of politics. It is both kinds of politics. It is Democratic
politics and it is Republican politics.

"How we got these schools, everybody here knows.
We send a man here long enough in the Legislature to
become chairman of Ways and Means or to become
Speaker and he wants a monument to his long service for
the State and county and that is where we got the schools.

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They were never apportioned around the State in accord-
ance with the State's needs. As a matter of fact, three of
them are near together.

"My notion is that these colleges or secondary schools
ought to be turned over to our Cornell College of Agri-
culture and let the Trustees of Cornell University use
them, giving to the Trustees the power by law to discon-
tinue any that do not show results, turning the property
back to the State of New York."

Efficiency and the right kind of concentration in busi-
ness are inseparable. A reasonable amount of home rule
has been won for the big cities. Smith has steadily fought
for the necessary home rule for the smaller places, and
for the organization of the counties as units of govern-
ment. He established the county as the unit for health aid
in rural districts and for various other administrative
functions exercised by the State. He has suggested an
investigation of county government by the same Hughes
Committee that made the reorganization report. His
purpose here was to place the counties on an efficient basis
of government. The Greeks used to think the only sound
unit of government was one small enough for all the
voters to be within sound of a speaker's voice. The Greeks
had no newspapers and no radio. In the Governor's
opinion the county is not too small or too large for many
valuable functions. His interest in the right size for an
effective political unit is characteristic of his fundamental
political thinking.

[294]

IDEALS AND BUSINESS

The Governor made a convincing presentation of the
idea when, in his message vetoing a series of bills making
rules for the taking of fish and game, he pictured the
Legislature passing its time deciding the number of fish
hooks which should be allowed on a line, and postponing
consideration of the important business of the State. It is
not much less silly to have it laboring about cleaning off
the snow from the sidewalks of the various villages of
the State.

The meaning of efficiency and economy must always
be read in connection with the duties the community has.
The foremost duties were briefly and strikingly summed
up by the Governor as follows:

I "There are two great functions the State performs for
jour people. One is the education of our children and the
[other is the preservation of health."

In the Governor's annual message of January 6, 1926,
he is seen urging the county as a unit for local public
health work, with a full time qualified county health
officer responsible. In his message of January 5, 1927, he
again recommends the county health unit.

In his annual message of January 7, 1925, he haJ
urged legislation to strengthen the Medical Practice Act
and control quackery. On March 27 of the same year he
sent a message to the Senate that recommended the pas-
sage of that bill, already passed by the Assembly, ap-
proved by the State Department of Education and Health
and by; more than 10,000 practicing physicians. In his

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1926 message he again appealed for legislation to pre-
vent unqualified persons from practicing medicine. The
Legislature of 1926 passed the Medical Practice Act ap-
proved by all the medical societies of the State of New
York. Those societies and the American Medical Asso-
ciation repeatedly commended the Governor's stand in
relation to public health.

The Governor's bracketing together of education and
health reflects the attitude he has taken toward health
work. He has put himself into close and sympathetic co-
operation with the physicians of the state and held many
conferences with them. In 1925 he called a conference of
representative doctors whom he requested to submit to
him a health program. The conference with the doctors
and the conference with the educators were alike, in that
they both formed the basis of fundamental legislation.

An example of the interlocking of considerations of
efficiency with ultimate ideals was given in the prisons.
They were among the State institutions that had to be
brought up to date by bond issues and by reconstruction
of the State government. In thinking of such immediate
efficiency, however, the Governor has always at the same
time been troubled by the existence of a more remote
problem. He realizes that the human race is far from
having thought out a proper treatment of delinquency.
Some of his uses of the pardoning power have been
much criticized, but his answers are generally taken to be
conclusive. He has never gone as far as Lincoln went in

[296]

ON EVERY WASHINGTON S BIRTHDAY THE GOVERNOR
DINES WITH HIS NEWSBOY FRIENDS AT THE NEWS-
BOYSJ LODGING HOUSE ON PARK ROW, NEW YORK. CITY

Courtesy of Keystone View Co., Inc.

ADDRESSING THE "OLD NEIGHBORS' CLUB" IN THE ASSEM-
BLY HALL OF A NEIGHBORHOOD PUBLIC SCHOOL

IDEALS AND BUSINESS

allowing the element of human sympathetic understand-
ing to overrule the conclusions brought about by the ap-
plication of imperfect laws and imperfect public thinking.

An instance of the kind of attacks made on the Gov-
ernor in this connection is one that charged him with
granting ninety-two commutations of sentence or pardons
in the year ending October 31, 1925. The Governor re-
plied that only nine persons among these were actually in
prison. The others had gone back into community life.
After a term in prison the offender is deprived of his
citizenship rights unless they are restored by pardon of
the Governor. Commutation or shortening of sentence
does not necessarily carry pardon with it. In every single
instance the commutation was granted only when the
judge or the district attorney recommended that it should
be granted, except in certain instances when the prison
physician made the recommendations. As for pardons or
restorations to citizenship, the Governor stated with emo-
tion that when a man had long since completed a term of
imprisonment, and had shown his willingness and ability
to live a moral and self-supporting life, he would not
refuse such a man a pardon which would enable him to
strengthen his self-respect by being granted full citizen-
ship.

In his annual message of 1924, he said:

"In our administration of prisons I think it is safe to
say that the attitude of the State should not be one of
seeking vengeance. No man after offending against so-

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ciety should be kept merely in restraint. We should strive
rather to rehabilitate. The State should put it in his
power, if his will is properly directed, to become again a
useful member of society."

During his first term he had said at the convention of
the American Prison Association:

"I can think of nothing which is so deadly, nothing
which will so tear down the spirit, nothing which will so
sap up a man's energy and ambition as confinement in
enforced idleness. If we have no other idea in mind ex-
cept the question of punishment, then that is one thing 5
but if, on the other hand, the State is interested in re-
turning the men or the women to society as useful citi-
zens, it will never be able to do it unless during that
period of confinement their thoughts and their minds are
occupied by what they will be able to do in life and to
appreciate what work means, what satisfaction it brings to
a person at the close of a day to say, 'Here is what I have
accomplished today.'

"I received the shock of my life when I went to a
reformatory in this State. I thought it was a place to send
the young man whom we did not want to mingle with
the hardened criminals. I thought it was a place where
we could send a young man to let him feel a little charity
of the State, the goodness of the State, let him feel that
the State had a real heart and did not want to send him
to prison. When I went into that reformatory to look
over the cell block system, with the single door locking

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IDEALS AND BUSINESS

at night, the cramped-up cell, the open toilet alongside
the bed, I said, 'This is not a reformatory except in name.
What is there about this that is different from a prison,
and why raise a false hope in the heart of a young first
offender by making him believe he is going to a reforma-
tory, when he is going into a regular prison ?' . . .

"I am coming to another subject, the earnings of the
prisoner while in confinement. I feel strongly on that
subject. It has been my experience, not only since I have
been Governor, but all the years I was in the Legislature,
that the real sufferers as a result of a prison sentence are
the dependent members of the prisoner's family. I do not
think it is a question that admits of any discussion. The
prisoner is taken over by the State, supported, fed, and
clothed 5 and his children, if he has any — and unfortu-
nately a great many of them have — and his wife are
thrown upon the mercy of friends and relatives or else
become public charges. The most pitiable cases one can
listen to are constantly brought to the attention of the
Governor, actual want and actual starvation, as the result
of the breadwinner being locked up in the State prison.
In some instances it is unfair to the State to hold a man
in prison when the children are in want 5 it is unfair to
society to let him out. In a great many instances the man
is where he belongs but that does not take from the State
the obligation to do something for the man's wife and
children while he is in prison.5'

He utilized to the full the recommendations made by

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a special commission appointed by the Superintendent of
Prisons during his first term. George W. Alger was
counsel to this group. As a result of its work, the system
of prison industries and better payment for prisoners'
work was ordered during the second year of Governor
Miller's term, and encouraged and extended by Smith
when he returned to office.

The Governor did not leave these ideas hanging in the
air. In his annual message of 1925 he recommended com-
pensation for prisoners injured in industry, and compen-
sation to their dependents when they are killed. He has
ideas that go even further in the direction of freeing pris-
oners from evil influence and subjecting them to recon-
structive influence, but he can do nothing now. On account
of the spectacular crimes connected with automobiles and
firearms, the public mind is running mainly in the direc-
tion of punishment.

Although the Governor rather likes to throw out jokes
at the pomposity and intricacy of some legal language and
procedure, he studies the law hard, One day the two
authors of this book were talking with him. It was the
day after the dinner in which some of the leaders in the
campaign of 1926 were together to reminisce and have a
good time. The Governor, speaking informally, men-
tioned a provision regarding the qualification of judges
as being in the constitution. Several eminent judges at
the dinner, speaking of this statement, said to one an-
other that at last the Governor had made a slip on a

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IDEALS AND BUSINESS

question of fact, as the provision regarding qualifications
of judges was in a statute, not in the constitution.

"I won twenty-five dollars on you last night," said one
of the authors to the Governor. The Governor looked
mildly interested. The author referred to this statement
of the judges and went on:

"I knew nothing about it, but I bet twenty-five dollars
you were right. We looked up the constitution and found
the provision. The reason the judges made the mistake
was that they were more accustomed to looking up the
qualifications in a statute, and they simply assumed that
they were not also stated in the constitution."

The Governor made no comment except this: "I am
not likely to forget things."

We make no pretense of having covered all the depart-
ments of the work of such a huge business organization
as the State of New York. If we have made a mistake,
however, it is more likely to have been in endeavoring to
tell too much than in telling too little. We have intended
to tell nothing that did not illustrate Governor Smith's
unusual mastery of the innumerable branches of the huge
business corporation of which he is president 5 or else
illustrate the human services which, in his opinion, that
huge corporation exists to perform.

Many times in the course of this story we have met the
same difficulty. If Governor Smith were merely an out-
standing liberal, ably presenting general ideals, the task
would be an easier one. Since the very foundation of his

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

strength is that he finds ways of putting liberalism into
working machinery all along the line of the business of
a great modern State, we are faced both with the multi-
tude of tasks and accomplishments, and with their in-
tricacy. The reader whose attention we have kept with
us thus far will, we hope, be unable to answer this ques-
tion should he meet it: whether Governor Smith is more
remarkable for his conception of what a government
ought to be, or for his ability to carry out that conception.
One is as necessary and as important as the other. His
strength is founded on the combination, and it is this
solidly based strength that has now made him not only
a distinguished statesman at home, but a figure of interest
to the whole nation.

[302]

Chapter IX

FACING THE NATION

No governor of New York can show high intellectual and
executive ability, honesty, independence, and vote-getting
power without becoming a national figure. The nation
outside of New York began to take some interest in Smith
when he ran over 1,000,000 votes ahead of his ticket in
1920. This interest was increased when he went back to
Albany in 1922. It expressed itself in a bitter fight in the
Democratic National Convention in 1924. It then prob-
ably receded a little for a short time, returning with great
force after the spectacular victory in 1926. This victory in
1926 coincided with increasing disillusion about the wis-
dom of trying to handle drink through the national con-
stitution, and with the failure of William G. McAdoo, the
outstanding political leader among those forces opposed
to Smith, either to dramatize some new issue or to express
himself convincingly on the question of constitutional
prohibition as opposed to independent action by the sep-
arate States.

Smith in 1924 was not unfamiliar with national con-
ventions. He had been a delegate to Baltimore, St. Louis,
and San Francisco. In fact, the national conventions of-
fered him his few opportunities to see the country.

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UP, FROM THE CITY STREETS

He was quiet at these early conventions. He had not
grown strong enough to take a prominent part and he
had no course but to follow the leader.

At San Francisco in 1920, he had a complimentary
vote from the convention. The speech putting him in
nomination was delivered by New York's foremost ora-
tor, Bourke Cockran. Cockran loved Smith and hoped to
be the one to nominate him as a serious candidate in
1924, but he died in January, 1923. Smith had a deep
affection for Cockran, and a great admiration of his
power as an orator. They spent many hours together, the
older man pouring out his store of knowledge and advice,
the young man listening, absorbing, and enjoying.

It was at the San Francisco Convention that a song,
now closely identified with the Governor, was first played
in a national convention. After Smith had been put in
nomination, the band played "East Side, West Side."
The composer, Thomas Lawlor, was a member of the
old vaudeville team of Thornton and Lawlor. When the
song became popular after the convention Lawlor, then
an old man and blind, was photographed with Smith and
promptly returned to the vaudeville stage.

In the New York convention of 1924 one of the au-
thors of this biography had a personal interview with
Bryan. Introducing himself, he said: "Mr. Bryan, when
I was a young man, in 1896, you were my idol, because
I felt you were introducing social questions in American
politics. I worked for you then, and later, because I felt

[304]

FACING THE NATION

you were leading the progressive forces of the country.
I am for Smith with the same enthusiasm, because he is
the outstanding progressive candidate, and I do not see
why, you, a progressive, should not support him. You, if
any man in this convention, should be on Smith's side."
Bryan replied coldly and curtly, "I am opposed to Smith,
not because he is a progressive, but because he is a wet,"
and turned his back.

It is not easy to say whether the convention of 1924
helped Smith or hurt him. Murphy had died recently and
the Tammany forces were temporarily conducted by a
triumvirate. Before his death Murphy had agreed with
the effort being led by the New York World to bring the
convention to New York City. Smith was not himself
certain that it was a good policy, but it was a delicate
situation, as he personally was so much concerned, and
he was willing to be guided. Murphy's intention was to
conduct the campaign himself quietly but to let the open
leadership go to western Democrats — notably Brennan of
Illinois — and to Norman Mack, national committeeman
from New York. It seems clear enough at this distance
that Smith's doubts were well founded, and many of his
supporters wrong, in their desire to bring the delegates to
a place where Smith's popularity and charm could be
dramatized.

The convention was held in Madison Square Garden,
an enormous place. Whether or not their feeling was jus-
tified, the delegates representing the West and South, and

[305]

FROM THE CITY STREETS

the Protestant and dry elements, were decidedly offended
by what happened in the great city. They believed the
outbursts in the convention in favor of Smith to be, in
large part, made possible by the control of admissions
by forces friendly to the Governor. The fight, however,
served to make the whole country more familiar with the
Governor's name, and thereby to prepare it, at least, to
listen to evidence of his strength, as such evidence has
drifted across the country from time to time.

The case for Governor Smith was admirably put forth
by Franklin D. Roosevelt when he placed the Governor's
name in nomination.

That this aristocratic and cultivated man was the leader
of the Smith forces is worthy of a moment's pause.
Roosevelt, back in 1911, was leading a group of Dem-
ocrats in the Legislature who were in revolt against
dictation from Fourteenth Street. Murphy's candidate
for the United States Senate was popularly known
as Blue-Eyed Billy Sheehan. He was a successful cor-
poration lawyer and one of the pillars of the organi-
zation. Murphy felt strongly and put all his force
behind Sheehan's candidacy. The Roosevelt insurgents
won. Among those who worked hard for Sheehan
was Alfred E. Smith. The spectacle of Roosevelt, disin-
terested, eloquent, and trusted by everybody, rising to
extol the merits of the Governor, measured the distance
from 1911 to 1924. It measures the development of
Alfred Smith, but it measures also an increasing under-

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FACING THE NATION

standing by others of the man who was undertaking to
drag his party along with him, instead of merely protest-
ing from outside the breastworks.

Roosevelt had been the candidate for Vice-President
when Cox was candidate for President in 1920. He was an
extremely sympathetic figure as he took his position in
the rostrum, helped up to that height by two attendants.
An attack of illness had taken away the use of his limbs,
but had left his mind at its best. He spoke with gentle-
ness, refinement, and moderation, and it was not infre-
quently said that, if his bodily condition had been differ-
ent, he himself would probably have been the compromise
candidate. Near the opening of the address he said: "On
our Governor for over twenty years in public office the
white light of publicity has pitilessly beaten, and revealed
only spotless integrity." Going along to discuss the short-
comings of the Federal government, he denied that there
was any reason why public business should not approach
the efficiency of private business, and he said: "Here in
this State, through the leadership of this governor, gov-
ernmental efficiency has so increased that the executives of
other States have done us the honor of seeking to copy our
model. He was a pioneer for the budget system. He was
a pioneer in the reorganization and simplification of gov-
ernmental departments. Through it all he has held up
and strengthened the system of promotion in the gov-
ernment service for merit only, and the appointment to
public office of men and women preeminently qualified

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UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

for their tasks. Because of his ideals and methods of gov-
ernment, he has won not only the undivided support of
his own party but the public endorsement of great civic
non-partisan bodies of the city and State."

On his record as a person trusted by his own State, Mr.
Roosevelt said: "He has been elected to office seventeen
times. Chosen Governor of this State first in 1918, he
suffered the only defeat of his long career in 1920. But
it was a defeat more glorious than victory. When our
national ticket in the State of New York went down to
defeat under a plurality of 1,100,000 votes, he lost this
State by only 74,000. He got 1,000,000 votes more than
I did — and I take off my hat to him ! Over 500,000 people
who voted the Republican national ticket split their ballots
to testify their undying confidence in this Democratic gov-
ernor; and in 1922, when men came again to think clearly
and to reason sanely, when the black clouds of group
hatred had been swept away, when sordid appeals to class
and race had lost their evil spell, the people of this State
rose again in their might and reelected him Governor by
a plurality of 384,945, the largest plurality ever given
any candidate for governor in the history of the United
States."

In that convention there was exposed flagrantly the lack
of unity in the Democratic party. There is a certain lack
of unity in the Republican party, also, but it is not suf-
ficient to prevent general effective action in nominating
conventions and in elections. The agrarian, or so-called

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FACING THE NATION

progressive, wing of the Republican party seldom makes
much trouble in election years. The party has no trouble
with the religious question. While it has its wet elements,
they have not been strong enough to create any such situ-
ation as has been created among the Democrats. Begin-
ning with Andrew Jackson, the Democrats usually elected
their presidents. Since the Civil War, on the other hand,
the Republican predominance has been overwhelming;
Grover Cleveland won two elections with the tariff as his
main issue. Samuel J. Tilden, in the general opinion o£
historians today, was elected in 1876, although counted
out. There was no test in 1912, because Theodore Roose-
velt split the Republicans into two camps. There was no
real test in 1916, because we were in the middle of a
world war, and Wilson got through by a few electoral
votes on the slogan, "He kept us out of war," no attention
whatever being paid by the voters to the brilliant con-
structive record of his first administration. 1920 had
shown a terrific swing back to Republican preponderance.
As the delegates in Madison Square Garden discussed
the general weakness of their party, and its best hope of
revival, they had something else to consider also. Another
convention was about to open in Cleveland. Indeed as
things turned out, it opened before the Democratic con-
vention was able to bring its controversy to a close. This
was the convention of Republican progressives, moderate
Socialists and a few progressive Democrats, to nominate
Senator Robert M. LaFollette and run him independently

[309]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

for the presidency. LaFollette polled over 4,500,000
votes. If the election had been held early in September,
he would have polled more. There was an agricultural
revival just in time to help the Republicans in the North-
west. The specific issues under the banner of which La-
Follette undertook to marshal the liberal thought of the
country — an attack on the Supreme Court and a demand
for government ownership of railways — received no gen-
eral favorable response.

When the LaFollette forces got together in Cleveland,
the leaders were frankly in doubt what they ought to do
if either McAdoo or Smith should be nominated. They
looked upon them both as having liberal strength. They
believed, however, that neither would be nominated, and
that they would be able to say, when the nomination was
made, that there was no essential difference in social out-
look between President Coolidge and the Democratic
nominee. This turned out to be the case.

Mr. McAdoo received on the first ballot 431^ votes,
and his largest vote, 530, was with the sixty-ninth ballot.
Smith received on the first ballot 241 votes j his highest
vote of 368 was on the seventy-sixth ballot. John W.
Davis was nominated on the one-hundred-and-third
ballot.

Smith's strength in the convention came from the big
cities, and from those State machines that were dominated
by the big cities. The rural regions of the Middle West,
Far jWest, and South were dry and Protestant. The out-

FACING THE NATION

come looked inevitable from the first. Each side hung on
in the hope of tiring the other. Offers to withdraw by one
or the other of the two leading contestants were put out,
but when explained, with all their conditions, they had
little meaning. In the end, the disgusted Convention, hav-
ing spent more time and more money in New York City
than it had cared to spend, and with absolutely no hope of
victory, nominated one of the ablest and most high-
minded figures in its party, who could not possibly rep-
resent the Democratic party as something in any essential
and important way different from the Republican party.
The result was that Coolidge was elected by the largest
plurality ever received.

It was after the nomination of Davis that Smith made
his speech at the convention. Although he had foreseen
the result, he could not help feeling hurt, because he was
convinced in his heart that what had prevented his nomi-
nation was his religion. He had never had any bigotry
himself. Through the whole of his career, he has been as
fair and as friendly to Protestants and Jews as he has to
Catholics, but he saw with tragic clearness that no such
tolerance existed in the Protestant majority of the United
States.

Smith hates to make a speech when he has nothing to
say. All his life he has been fighting away from the kind
of speeches that are made on the Fourth of July or on
St. Patrick's Day. He is no master of noisy commonplaces.
The larger and more pressing his subject, the more favor-

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

ably does he appear. Therefore, when he stepped up in
the rostrum beside the chairman, Senator Thomas J.
Walsh of Montana, and undertook to show his good will
to the convention, the delegates saw nothing of the Smith
whose strength is ever increasing because of the amount
of work he has done, and done with success, and they did
not even see the Smith who charms those who come close
enough to get his human quality. They simply saw a tired
man, who had just been made the victim of his simple
faith; and who had nothing to say about it. Feeling it
necessary to make a statement of his record in New York
he made it sound egotistic, a remarkable occurrence, since
almost always he takes but moderate credit for himself
and gives much to his party. The most that can be said
for this speech is that it was marked by the strain under
which he suffered and that for once in his political career
of twenty years he did not rise to the occasion. Its redeem-
ing feature yas his assertion of State leadership and his
call to his followers to support loyally the nominees of
the convention.

While we admit that Smith's speech at this critical point
did not hit the mark, and also that his emotions probably
were less serene than usual, it is only fair to say that even
in these trying days his temper kept most of its attractive-
ness In his way of meeting the unpromising situation. At
one point he had a personal conversation with McAdoo
about the possibility of their both withdrawing. When he
came back to his hotel and met his principal backers they,

Courtesy of Wide World Photos
GOVERNOR AND MRS. ALFRED E. SMITH

FACING THE NATION

of course, were eager to know what had happened. Among
the questions asked was one about when the break was
likely to come. For the answer Smith sang a line from
"Kathleen Mavourneen" — "It may be for years, and it
may be forever."

Gradually, since the drama in Madison Square Garden,
the disaster in November to the party, and Smith's mar-
velous record in the same November, the other forty-
seven States have settled down to make a closer estimate
of the New York Governor. The hostile questions asked
about him on the whole are two:

1. What would be the effect on his own administra-
tion, and thereafter, of having a Catholic in the White
House?

2. Exactly what is his conception of the right way to
handle the liquor evil?

No responsible person can be found in the whole state
of New York who can charge that the Governor has fa-
vored Catholics. Plenty of Catholics, on the other hand,
can be found who feel that he has not given them an
even chance in his higher appointments. There is no doubt
whatever that he has sought to bring his own administra-
tion into the highest state of efficiency by ignoring religion
and racial differences, on the same ground that he has
sought to ignore party differences in his appointments.
If his cabinet contains thirteen Protestants, one Jew, and
two Catholics, it is not because he preferred to have it
balanced that way. It is for the same reason that it con-

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UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

tains a number of Republicans. It is because in every case
he selected the person who, in his opinion, would best do
the wort.

No one can travel much in certain parts of the country,
and particularly in small places, without realizing that
religion has its bigots to-day as it did in the days when
Thomas Jefferson was the leading statesman opposing
such bigotry. The Democratic party still supposes itself
to be the party of Jefferson. That statesman lived to be
an old man. Before he died he wrote out the inscription
he wished to stand over his grave. He did not mention the
fact that he had been minister to France 5 or that he had
been secretary of state 5 or that he had been governor of
Virginia 5 or that he had been vice-president of the United
States j or that he had been twice president of the United
States. All he thought important enough to mention was
that he had founded the University of Virginia, and
that he had been the author of the Declaration of Inde-
pendence and of the Virginia statute guaranteeing religious
liberty.

Fortunately, this unworthy issue was brought to a sharp
focus in the spring of 1927, when the Atlantic Monthly
published an article in its March issue from a New York
lawyer, Charles R. Marshall, who is a high church Episco-
palian, much troubled about doctrinal matters, and often
inclined to feel that he himself would go over to the
Catholic Church if he were convinced on the matter of
temporal power. He contributed to the Atlantic an ener-

[3H]

FACING THE NATION

getic demand that Smith make himself clear on temporal
power, and he showed much learning, and quoted from
many encyclicals. Smith had never heard of an encyclical.
We have seen the altar boy, and know that he was grateful
to his church for the simple morality he had learned. No
temptation would make him hide his religion. He knows
what good it has brought to him, and he knows it has
never shaded his politics.

He has refused steadily to distract attention from his
work as governor by going around the country campaign-
ing for the presidency. His friends in different states and
his friends in Tammany Hall have urged him to do so.
That is not the way his mind works. It has been the habit
of a lifetime to plow the furrow in front of him and not
to get off on theoretical discussions connected with no
work in hand. Happily, he felt he could answer Marshall
without departing from his policy. He could not discuss
the presidency, consistently with the position he was tak-
ing, but he could answer the assault on him as a loyal
American and the governor of a State.

As he had never paid any attention to the elaborate
logic of the theologians, he had nothing but an instinct on
that subject, and said so. On the abstract doctrinal points
he confessed his complete ignorance, although he stated
his instinctive disbelief that his church made any claims
inconsistent with the duty of an American citizen. He
invited a Catholic priest, Rev. Francis P. Duffy, with a
very distinguished war record, to furnish an answer to

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

this part of Marshall's attack, and then he summed up
at the end with a personal statement of his own religious
and political faith.

At the time the article was written, the most acute test
in the mind of the public was Mexico. It was mentioned
as a test by Marshall. The Socialist government of
Mexico was in a sharp controversy with the Catholic
Church. There had been atrocities, and these atrocities
had been exploited in the American press. Various forces
were urging President Coolidge to intervene in one man-
ner or another. Among those forces were persons who
had economic and financial interests in Mexico. Others
were merely pillars of society, who thought it nonsense
to allow such goings-on. Others were American Catholics,
who felt the church was being persecuted. The Catholic
desire for a strong policy was made articulate by the
Knights of Columbus and by many Catholic papers.
When, therefore, in his reply, Smith definitely took up the
question of our right of intervention in the affairs of for-
eign countries, he took up the sharpest issue that at the
moment existed. In doing so, he used language which
committed him, with no attempt at evasion, not only on
our relation to Mexico, but (in the opinion of those who
were watching him closely) on the whole question of
financial imperialism in the western hemisphere. He said:

"My personal attitude, wholly consistent with that of
my Church, is that I believe in peace on earth, good will
to men, and that no country has a right to interfere in

FACING THE NATION

the internal affairs of any other country. I recognize the
right of no church to ask armed intervention by this
country in the affairs of another, merely for the defense
of the rights of a church. But I do recognize the propriety
of Church action to request the good offices of this country
to help the oppressed of any land, as those good offices -
have been so often used for the protection of Protestant
missionaries in the Orient and the persecuted Jews of
eastern Europe."

The last part of his Atlantic Monthly letter was as
follows:

"I summarize my creed as an American Catholic. I
believe in the worship of God according to the faith and
practice of the Roman Catholic Church. I recognize no
power in the institutions of my Church to interfere with
the operations of the Constitution of the United States
or the enforcement of the law of the land. I believe in
absolute freedom of conscience for all men and in equality
of all churches, all sects, and all beliefs before the law as
a matter of right and not as a matter of favor. I believe
in the absolute separation of Church and State and in the
strict enforcement of the provisions of the Constitution
that Congress shall make no law respecting an establish-
ment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
I believe that no tribunal of any church has any power to
make any decree of any force in the law of the land,
other than to establish the status of its own communicants
within its own church. I believe in the support of the

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public school as one of the corner stones of American
liberty. I believe in the right of every parent to choose
whether his child shall be educated in the public school
or in a religious school supported by those of his own
faith. I believe in the principle of non-interference by this
country in the internal affairs of other nations and that
we should stand steadfastly against any such interference
by whomsoever it may be urged. And I believe in the
common brotherhood of man under the common father-
hood of God.

"In this spirit I join with fellow Americans of all
creeds in a fervent prayer that never again in this land
will any public servant be challenged because of his faith
in which he has tried to ;walk humbly with his God."

Anti-Catholic organizations have never ceased to search
Smith's record in the hope of finding some one case in his
activities of a quarter of a century that reflects the in-
terests of his church. There can scarcely be a more com-
plete proof of his independence than the fact that all these
researches have turned up exactly one charge, and that
charge could be made only by totally suppressing a neces-
sary part of the story. It has been frequently used, the last
time by an organization that calls itself the Sons and
Daughters of Washington, and exists for the sole pur-
pose of attacking the Catholics. A pamphlet put out by
this organization in the spring of 1927 goes back to 1915.
Smith did introduce a resolution in the Committee on
Education of the Constitutional Convention, taking out of

FACING THE NATION

the constitution the clause which prohibits the State from
making appropriations for denominational schools, but he
never pressed it, and he explained at the time that it
was introduced for the purpose of killing another resolu-
tion introduced by James L. Nixon, editor of the Buffalo
Commercial. This resolution would have done away with
all tax exemption except in the case of State or Federal
property. It would have included among taxable property
all real estate owned by churches and charitable and edu-
cational organizations. It is true that the Catholic Church
would have suffered by such a resolution, perhaps more
than any other Church, and to that extent Smith may be
said this one time to have represented the interests of his
Church, although it is obviously true also that he repre-
sented the general policy of the State, and the general
opinion of the public. As a matter of fact, the Governor's
resolution never came before the Convention and is not in
the record. It died in committee in this way. When Gen.
Wickersham heard of its introduction in the committee he
said to Smith, "This resolution will split the Convention
wide open." Smith looked at him calmly and said, "That
is just what it is intended for. General, you have never
been a legislator, have you?" "No," replied the General.
"Well," said Smith, "this is a little bit of legislative tac-
tics. This amendment is what is known as a 'bludgeon.' If
the Nixon amendment goes through,! throw this bludgeon
into the Convention." "You don't expect this amendment
of Nixon's to pass, do you?" asked the General. "I don't

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

know what is going to happen," said Smith. "I am merely
a member of the minority. Of course, if the amendment
does not pass, my bludgeon will not need to be used."
The amendment did not pass, and, indeed, when the
matter got before the Convention, it was Nixon himself
who introduced an amendment under which the sites of
churches and other religious edifices, with the necessary
approaches, were eligible for exemption. Even with this
amendment, the Convention refused to adopt the plan.
The bludgeon rested in committee, unused. The fact that
the whole story is omitted from the anti-Catholic pam-
phlet circulated against Smith is a rather eloquent indica-
tion of the difficulty the fanatics have in finding any ma-
terial in the Governor's life with which to feed their
fanaticism.

Oscar S. Straus, former ambassador to Turkey and the
only Jewish member of President Roosevelt's cabinet, told
one of the writers that, as a practical rule, a Jew had to
deliver eighteen ounces to the pound. The remark im-
plied, of course, that under the handicap of prejudice, the
right kind of person feels the obligation to do better
than a member of the majority has to do to accomplish
the same result. The only political effect of his religion
on Smith has been to give him this added incentive.

Three-quarters of a century ago there raged a similar
disease of religious intolerance. At that time, the Demo-
cratic party was nearer Jefferson than it is today. In its
platform of 1856 it said of the Know Nothing Party,

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which was the anti-Catholic organization of the time: "A
political crusade in the nineteenth century, and in the
United States of America, against Catholics and foreign
born, is neither justified by the past history nor the future
prospects of the country, nor in unison with the spirit
of toleration and enlightened freedom which peculiarly
distinguishes the American system of popular govern-
ment."

Smith himself, on the few occasions when he has felt
compelled to mention this subject, has expressed himself
with the same dignity and moderation shown in this article
in the Atlantic Monthly. Speaking at Syracuse on October
21, 1924, he said:

"After my speech last night in Ithaca was concluded
a fiery cross was seen burning on what is called West Hill.
In the very center of education and culture, in a territory
that harbors a great university of the State, the spirit of
bigotry and intolerance appeared upon the horizon.

"Several weeks ago I read in the newspaper of a Klan
christening, and the details showed that the baby was held
against the sheeted breast of a Klansman. A minister of
the gospel arrayed in the regalia of the Klan pronounced
the ritual. Here was a disciple of the Christ of love and
peace, breathing into the heart and soul of an infant child
the spirit of hate and war, dedicating the infant to a hatred
of millions of its fellow men, and doing it in the name
of Christ.

"To my mind the whole movement is out of line with

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

the spirit of our free institutions ; it is so out of tune with
the history and purposes of this country, it is so abhorrent
to intelligent thinking Americans of all denominations,
that it must in time fall to the ground of its own weight.

"The Catholics of the country can stand it, the Jews
can stand it 5 our citizens born under foreign skies can
stand itj the negro can stand it 5 but the United States
of America cannot stand itj nor can they countenance a
policy of silence in regard to it on the part of the man who
has a special commission to speak for the heart and con-
science of the American people."

The crusade against Smith on account of his religion
frequently takes the form of vague charges about control
of education by the Church. What Smith has done for
education has been sufficiently covered. All that is rele-
vant at the present moment is to give his answer to this
specific charge. Speaking at Syracuse on October 21, 1924,
he was answering the Republican candidate for the gov-
ernorship. After presenting the documentary evidence,
Colonel Theodore Roosevelt next charged Smith with
wishing to bring under political control the State Depart-
ment of Education by taking the appointment of the
Commissioner of Education away from the Board of
Regents and placing it in the hands of the governor. He
had based his charge on an incident long ago exploded.
The incident grew out of a misprint in the proposed con-
stitutional amendment reorganizing the State departments.
Smith had in his possession two letters — one from the

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Secretary of the Citizens' Union, and one from the Sec-
retary of the New York State Association, thoroughly ex-
posing the error. After stating these facts he proceeded:
"Up to this moment I presume that Colonel Roosevelt
made the statement to which I have referred, not of his
own knowledge, but as the result of misinformation
handed to him by somebody in the Republican Press
Bureau. I hope that after this explanation Mr. Roosevelt
will be fair enough not to repeat the statement and that
during the rest of his campaign he will cease to speak
about any attempt, either on my part, or on the part of
the Democratic Party, to get control of the Department
of Education, because he cannot after this explanation
truthfully make that statement It is unfortunate that he
has made it so far without having looked up all the facts
in connection with it. There can be no doubt that state-
ments of this kind, coming from the accredited leader of
a great political party, feed the fires of religious and
racial bigotry. Just such arguments as political control of
education are the ones used to promote membership in a
secret order, that has for its object the curtailment of
equality of opportunity to certain groups of our people,
because of their race, religion or color."

"I refer you to the New York Times in an editorial
of October 3, 1924, that cites the whole record and closes
with this sentence: 'The public schools have had no better
friend at Albany than Alfred E. Smith.' I believe that
article was written by Dr. John H. Finley, former com-

[323]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

missioner of education. If it was not, I know that it ex-
presses his sentiments."

That leaves us one more large and difficult question
precipitated beyond the State and into the nation. If left
entirely free, Smith would have paid less attention to
the liquor question than he was forced to pay.

The people of the United States, in his opinion, made
a mistake when they interfered with the course of history
that was rapidly reducing the liquor evil in the United
States, partly by regulation, such as local public opinion
might favor, and partly by changing habits, due to educa-
tion, to the need of sobriety in running high-powered
machinery, and to a general. interest in the rising standard
of living. "The gulf between one element of the party
and me," the Governor once said in conversation, "is that
the radical dry element looks upon drink as a moral
question. I look upon it as an economic question. It was
solving itself. Now that the amendment has been passed
the only practical way of improving the situation in this
State would be for us to have the privilege cf putting
lighter drinks on our side in an attempt to destroy the
habit of strong drink. If it were possible for us to permit
light wine and beer it would be easier to concentrate
against strong drinks. Probably, though not certainly, we
could win the fight against them even in the State of New
York under these conditions. If we did, a generation
would grow up that either did not drink at all or took
only the lighter drinks, and when that time came we

[324]

FACING THE NATION

could decide two questions: first, whether we cared to go
on and abolish also the lighter drinks 5 second, whether
such a step had become possible."

Smith is essentially a man who knows where his job
begins and where it ends. Nobody knows better than he
what a small part will be played in the long run in the
decision of this matter by any governor or any president.
Liquor was brought most sharply into New York politics
when the Legislature decided to repeal the special State
enforcement law called the Mullan-Gage Act. Smith be-
lieved the Republican leaders wished to put him in a
quandary. The day after the vote the Governor was com-
ing out of his hotel in New York. He met an intimate
friend. He was discouraged to a degree that has seldom
happened to him. "They have me down and out," he
said. He meant that whichever course he took he would
arouse so much anger that the injury to his political
strength would be serious.

"I do not know," his friend replied. "It is possible
they have given you a great opportunity, provided you
decide rightly what to do."

"What do you think I ought to do?" said the Governor.

"I think you ought to veto the repeal," said his friend.

"You come back in a week and tell me what you think
then."

His friend came back in a week, and he opened the
conversation with this statement: "I have changed my
mind."

[325]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

"It's a good thing you have," said the Governor. "If
you had not, I would have changed it for you. There is
only one thing I can do, and that is to be exactly what
I am. I believe in enforcing the law, and I believe in
personal liberty. I could have made a better-looking case
by vetoing the repeal and talking about enforcement, but
in my heart I believe the degree to which personal liberty
is being interfered with in this matter is unwise, and I
am going to take a position consistent with what I believe
in my heart."

In the course of the discussion some one suggested that
if he vetoed the repeal he would help himself nationally.
He turned quickly and with sincere emphasis said, "I
hope that as long as I live I'll never do anything because
it may help me to preferment or place, rather than be-
cause it is what I believe to be right."

Having thus revealed clearly what position was true
to his inner voice, after the tension of his decision was
over, he did a characteristic thing. The discussion had
lasted till long past midnight. He swung around on his
heel and burst into song, which was the first time that
particular song had ever been heard by his visitor. The
song was "Yes, We Have No Bananas."

The refusal of the Governor to interfere with the
repeal certainly meant no failure to recognize the facts
as they might develop. When the Supreme Court of the
United States decided that the States are under an obliga-
tion to help carry out the Volstead Act, Governor Smith

[326]

FACING THE NATION

was repeatedly emphatic in his orders to officials to carry
out that duty. He believes the enforcement of the Vol-
stead Act by the State officials has been more successful
than the enforcement by local officials or by Federal
agents, and that it has been as successful as it can be under
the hostile condition of public opinion.

Before the amendment was passed he had predicted to
representatives of the breweries that if the liquor people
did not clean up their business some violent action would
be taken by the community. He has been quoted as having
said on one occasion something pleasant about the old
brass rail. He did make a flitting joke to that effect.
It was one of those light remarks our public men, espe-
cially those who best understand the press, continually
make among newspaper men, without fear of being mis-
represented. This particular remark, however, was un-
fairly used, and Smith later took occasion to clear it up.
In a letter to Senator Fess of Ohio, he said:

"You may have noticed recently in the papers a state-
ment coming from me about bar-rails. I think that on my
record you will join with the people who know me well,
and do me the credit of believing that I have enough
common sense and experience of life to understand that
the saloon is and ought to be a defunct institution in this
country. In an informal meeting with the newspaper men,
after several facetious remarks had been made about the
promised introduction of a 3 per cent, beer bill, I joined
with the reporters themselves in joking about it, and took

[327]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

occasion myself to speak facetiously of the bar-rail. My
remark was intended for gentlemen with a sense of
humor. . . ."

What Smith frequently does say, and seriously mean,
is that the saloon evil cannot be allowed to come back, but
that, in choosing ways to get rid of it or its substitutes,
it is unfortunate to leave government by public opinion
out of account.

In 1926 he said: "Aside from any other consideration,
it goes without saying that modification of the Volstead
Act is an issue. This Referendum presents to the people
of the State of New York their very first opportunity to
express themselves upon that issue. The Democratic party,
faithful to its pledges, consistent with its record, honest,
sincere and above board in all of its dealings with the
people of the State, asks that they vote 'Yes' on the ques-
tion contained in the Referendum.

"I do not believe any one questions my leadership of
the Democratic party, and I advise the Democrats and all
who are in sympathy with their aims and purposes to vote
cYes' in order to indicate that they favor a modification
of the Volstead Act.

"The Eighteenth Amendment to the Federal Consti-
tution was ratified by the Legislature of this State at the
session of 1919. In 1920 the same Senate and an As-
sembly presided over and directed by the same leaders
enacted the so-called 2.75 per cent, beer and wine bill.
This bill I approved. It was afterwards held unconstitu-

[328]

FACING THE NATION

tional and the United States Supreme Court declared in
rendering its decision that the word 'concurrent' in the
Eighteenth Amendment referred only to concurrence in
legislation which Congress passed to execute the provi-
sions of the Eighteenth Amendment and did not permit
the States to adopt a definition of an intoxicating beverage
as one containing not more than one-half of one per cent,
of alcohol,

"In 1922 the Democratic State Convention inserted in
its platform a plank favoring an amendment to the Vol-
stead Act which would permit the States under certain
restrictions and after popular referendum to permit traffic
in light wines and beer not regarded as intoxicating bev-
erages. That platform and the candidates who ran upon
it received the overwhelming support of the people of this
State toward this question. Nevertheless, it is a fact that
the Eighteenth Amendment is the law of the land and
no one suggests, least of all the Legislature of this State
or myself, that it should be violated.

"In 1921 there was enacted in this State what has come
to be known as the Mullan-Gage Law. It put into the
penal statutes substantially all of the provisions of the
Volstead Act but accompanies them by even more rigorous
provisions as to search and seizure.

"I make no criticism of this action on the part of the
Legislature, but I am entirely unwilling to admit the
contention that there was put upon the State either by the
Eighteenth Amendment, the Volstead Act, or the United

[329]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

States Supreme Court decision, any obligation to pass any
law adopting into the State law the provisions of the
Volstead Act. . . .

"I am dealing with three classes of people, the radical
drys, the radical wets, and those who hold moderate views
on this subject. The drys seem to see a moral duty on
the part of the State to maintain an enforcement act.
They are undoubtedly led to this conclusion by their own
frame of mind because they do not suggest that the State
maintain an act merely enforcing the Eighteenth Amend-
ment in accordance with the wishes of the majority of
the people of the State, but they insist that there be a
State enforcement act exactly paralleling the Volstead
Act. . . .

"The mere omission to maintain a State statute in no
way abrogates a Federal statute. It seems to me that this
effectually disposes of the loose talk about the nullification
of the Constitution by refusal on the part of any of the
States to enact separate statutes.

"After repeal there will rest upon the peace officers of
this State the sacred responsibility of sustaining the Vol-
stead act with as much force and as much vigor as they
would enforce any State law or local ordinance, and I shall
expect the discharge of that duty in the fullest measure by
every peace officer in the State. The only difference after
repeal is that today the police officer may take the of-
fender for prosecution to the State court, to the Federal
court or to both. After the repeal of the Mullan-Gage

[330]

FACING THE NATION

Law the prosecution must be where it belongs — in the
Federal court. In law and in fact there is no more lawless-
ness in repealing the Mullan-Gage Law than there is in
the failure of the State fo pass statutes making it a State
crime to violate any other Federal penal statute. . . .

"We have been taught that eternal vigilance is the price
of liberty, and how far we may wander from the thoughts
and ideals of the founders of our government is well
illustrated by the suggestion in the President's letter that
because the States have a larger police force than the Fed-
eral government has, and because the Federal govern-
ment has at this time what the President describes as an
inadequate machinery for the enforcement of the Vol-
stead Act, therefore the States are obliged severally to
enact statutes duplicating the Volstead Act. I am unable
to understand from what source he believes this obliga-
tion to be derived and he does not disclose it. The Presi-
dent might, with equal force, suggest that at any time
Congress in its wisdom saw fit to withhold adequate ap-
propriation for the enforcement of any Federal law, that
there immediately devolved a duty upon each State to
enact that Federal law into a State statute.

"I am not here discussing the wisdom or unwisdom of
prohibition. The question is rather whether all vestige
of the rights of the States guaranteed by the Federal Con-
stitution is to be driven from our political theory of gov-
ernment. With all respect for the President of the United
States I must here reassert this principle against his chal-

[330

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

lenge and as the Chief Executive of the greatest sov-
ereignty in the Union, it is my duty to declare and main-
tain that sovereignty in exact accordance with the guar-
antees of the Constitution. The Federal government has
no right to impose upon the State any obligation to pass
any statute affirmatively embodying any Federal statute."
So much for the attitude of Smith in a predicament in
which the American people ought never to have been put.
The Constitution of the United States was created for a
certain purpose. It was intended to define the relations
between the new central government and the State gov-
ernments, and also to define the relative powers of the
Legislature, the executive and the judiciary. The first ten
amendments added a general bill of rights which many
thought should have been in the original document. As
the Constitution dealt only with these fundamentals it
was made very difficult to amend. Some of the States have
taken up the custom of putting a large part of their ordi-
nary laws into the constitution. The Eighteenth Amend-
ment is the most flagrant example thus far of a successful
attempt by a temporary majority to use the national
Constitution for the passage of sumptuary legislation. It
makes it impossible to treat the liquor situation as a mat-
ter of experience and experiment, as is being done in
Sweden and Canada, for example. It commits all of the
States, practically for all time, to the point of view of ab-
solute prohibition. No matter how completely prohibition
may fail in certain States, the possibility of changing the

[332]

FACING THE NATION

amendment is extremely remote, because it cannot be done
as long as one State more than one quarter of the whole,
or thirteen States as things stand now, are against the
repeal of the amendment. The intensely dry elements of
the South and West will easily prevent any such change,
for as far ahead as we can see.

In facing this most unsatisfactory issue politicians fall
into three groups. Many take the position that the natural
course is the strictest enforcement of the Volstead Act.
Many seek various phrases for dodging the issue. The
rest are those in favor of such modification as may be
possible. That Smith belongs in the third group, he has
never left any doubt.

We may leave this question of the Governor's relation
to the country outside of New York with a few words
from his inaugural address of January 2, 1927:

"I have no idea what the future has in store for me.
Every one else in the United States has some notion about
it except myself. No man would stand before this intel-
ligent gathering and say that he was not receptive to the
greatest position the world has to give to any one. But I
can say this, that I will do nothing to achieve it, except to
give to the people of the State the kind and character of
service that will make me deserve it."

[333]

Chapter X

THE AGE AND THE MAN

THIS book began with the big new city and with little
boys running around the docks. In the fifty years since
Al Smith began to play in the streets, life has become
faster and more crowded. In the metropolis a building
is scarcely finished before it is obsolete. The city's sky
line changes almost before one's eyes as the steel girders
of the tall buildings leap high into the air. Problems of
the future are created by swelling urban populations. Our
hero has been the son of the city, but not of its accidents ;
not of the cabarets of Broadway, but rather of the loves
and hopes of fathers and mothers measured in millions;
not of its surface changes, but of its continuing needs.

Perhaps the leaders who are to rise from the new city
streets will philosophize less than Jefferson and Lincoln.
We do not know. They may concentrate on building for
a mechanical age. They may be of the big business type.
Happy the public if it is able to discover in sufficient num-
bers leaders in whom intentness, memory, and resource-
fulness fit them for the complex modern task, while at
the same time their souls remain sympathetic and free.
It may be that on the whole the expert builder tends to
be a oolitical aristocrat, like the city leader, Alexander

[334]

THE AGE AND THE MAN

Hamilton. Not infrequently the spokesman of liberty has
come from the open spaces, like the countryman, Thomas
Jefferson. It is of interest to our story, however, that the
most expert of modern governors, the most remarkable
example of skilled business in public office, has been a
man who has stood passionately for freedom as it was
understood by Jefferson. It is not impossible that the sense
of human justice, warm within him, may be part of that
heritage which came to him from his contacts among the
poor.

During the summer of 1927, the Governor, repeating
an experience he had often had before, found it necessary
to put some pressure on his organization to restrain its
appetite for spoils, this time in connection with the bench.
At the climax of that incident one of the authors of this
book was sitting in a private room with a few successful
lawyers. "Joe," he said to one of them, "of Smith's
qualities, how would you sum up that one which seems to
you the most important?"

The man was a Republican, but able to think outside of
party lines. The answer came back swiftly. "If I had a
situation," he said, "of special difficulty, both in its facts
and in its elements of right and wrong, and if it meant
much to me personally to have it justly solved, I would
take my chances with Smith rather than with any other
man in public life."

As we look back over political history in New York
since the Civil War, only a few names emerge. Tilden

[335]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

was a statesman. In a simpler era he was a notable gov-
ernor, and he was a strong and fine exponent o£ the Jef-
fersonian tradition in the nation. Also still in a simpler
era, Cleveland stood like a rock. His honesty, force of
will, and administrative soundness were felt first in the
State and later in the national capital. Roosevelt's energy,
education, and appeal to the moral imagination showed
themselves first when he was Police Commissioner in the
big city, then when Governor, but much more powerfully
on the larger stage. The first man who can be called a
famous modern governor of New York, in the sense of
dealing powerfully with State problems now confronting
us, is Charles Evans Hughes. He had the intellectual out-
look. His investigating talent went into matters of new
and fundamental importance. He combined understand-
ing and extraordinary industry with elevation of purpose.
If he did not also make a contribution to the actual struc-
ture of government, except in the establishment of the
Public Service Commissions, it was because his legal and
business talents were not supplemented with that politi-
cal instinct and that broad and simple human experience
that have contributed a large part of Smith's power to
cause things not only to be planned but also to be accom-
plished. While the significance of Smith would not exist
without his genuine moral atmosphere, his special dis-
tinction is in a constructiveness not approached by his
predecessors.

In this story there has not been much luck, any more

[336]

THE AGE AND THE MAN

luck than on the average greets the deserving and strug-
gling youth. It depends on what one thinks luck is. Con-
ditions usually have their advantages and also their price.
The existence of a Republican Legislature during Smith's
terms as governor doubtless caused him to travel faster
along the road that leads away from partisanship in the
business affairs of the State. It caused him also to dig
deeper into the principles involved, since it was on prin-
ciple he had to fight. At the same time it kept him from
adding water power and housing to the list of finished
business. We cannot be precise in balancing these things.
We may rejoice, however, in what we have, and rejoice
decidedly in the need that drove the Governor to go over
the heads of the politicians in a series of appeals to the
people*

Or if we go back into his early life again, it would
require a good deal of a dogmatist to put the advantages
and the disadvantages into a scale and give the answer.
Among the conditions of what we call poverty are many
things which hold us back or help us forward, according
to the spirit in which they are used. Few boys can expect
better influences than Father Kean and the mother of
Al Smith. Happily such good influences are widely dis-
tributed. The big city stands ready to shower gifts of that
kind on those among the young who look for them with
energy and patience.

Along with patience in the development both dF the
lovability and the strength of Smith has gone that sister

[337]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

virtue, humility. If he, since Wilson, has been his party's
foremost liberal, there has been plenty of caution with
his liberalism. Constantly those who bring him new pro-
posals meet rough treatment. He likes to give to each
new idea the experience of running the gauntlet of all
the hostile comments and questions he can think up. He
has a fundamental modesty about the ability of his own
mind, or any mind, to think out a plan that will work
when put into operation, but once the difficulties have
been honestly explored and the plan still looks sound,
every ounce of his energy is then thrown into making the
improvement a reality. This humility in the face of the
universe is not the sad humility with which we are famil-
iar in pioneers of lonely thought, but rather the humility
that ought always to be found in the honest expert. It is
like the humility of science, perhaps tinged a little with
another kind of modesty growing out of his early cir-
cumstances.

Conceptions of education must broaden as vast numbers
become the dictators of government. In this book we have
not quoted from the boy of the streets anything more
significant than his declaration that if you doubt the value
of education, ask the man who has been deprived of it.
Education is not exclusively in schools. We have seen that
the campaigns of the Governor for the progress of soci-
ety have been campaigns of modern education. A dema-
gogue lies to the people. He makes them think they can
get benefits at no cost. With the good old tool of ad-

[338]

THE AGE AND THE MAN

dressing meetings, and with the powerful new tools of
the newspapers and the radio, Smith has driven into the
consciousness of millions, not the easy falsehoods of an
agitator, but the truth that political proposals, leading
directly into the lives of children, women, and men, must
be studied both honestly and expertly.

This obviously places him in a different group from
many excellent Democrats stretched along between Jack-
son and Bryan. It does not, however, make him less
democratic than such men. Nothing is more essentially
part of his fiber than his democracy, since everything he
does is based on reaching public opinion, and endeavoring
to win it, not with catchwords, but with simplified demon-
strations of all necessary facts. If we remember what is
meant by the words, and do not interpret them narrowly,
it will be a correct conclusion to say that Smith has turned
out to be the very type of executive needed for the suc-
cessful conduct of modern business.

The world is always learning from examples. Smith's
story should be a bracing influence. His progress up from
the Fourth Ward takes its place among those epics that
lend energy to youth. A politician at the beginning, and a
politician now, he has shown that the equipment of a
politician's shrewdness and experience, instead of leading
a man astray, may be one of the most valuable weapons
in the arsenal of a statesman. Not a prophet, in the sense
of preaching a few doctrines of abstract righteousness, he
has been a prophet in the sense of seeing the reciprocal

[339]

UP FROM THE CITY STREETS

duties of State and citizen, and planning to have t^ose
duties, in both directions, carried out.

The poor do not ride free. Persistent energy for them
is the price of a satisfactory life. Because he had talent,
and also because he cared for other beings, the little boy
from the wharves earned in the end such a vote of con-
fidence from his State as it had granted to no one before
him. This boy believed in the right and in the fitness of
ordinary people to be their own masters. To the free insti-
tutions amid which he was born he has paid back his
indebtedness. In the service of that liberty to which he
attributes his own chance, he has gladly given the devotion
of a lifetime, helping to render that liberty; more fertile
and also more secure.

[340]

Index

Accident prevention. See State Fac-
tory Investigating Commission

Actor, influence of experience as,
on public speaking, 27

Adamson, Robert, 142

Addams, Jane, 194

Adirondack Light and Power Com-
pany, 269

Adirondacks Forest Preserve, 257,
264

Adler, Felix, 187

Agar, John G., 188

Age, The, and the Man, 334-340

Agricultural interests of the state,
291-294

Agriculture, Department of, 292

Albany, Port of, 267

Aldermanic districts, right of city
to apportion its, 117

Aldermen, Board of, nominated for
President of, 142; in office, 143-
149

Alger, George W., 300

Altar boy, 10

Aluminum Company of America,
264

Aluminum Trust, 264

American Institute of Architects,
180

American Medical Association, 296

American Prison Association, 298

American Psychiatric Association,
238

American Super Power Corpora-
tion, 261

Amusements, 201

Animals, love of, 201

Annual messages, 166

Anti-Catholic feeling, 311, 313, 318,
320

Anti-Tammany movement, 94

Appointments, political, 175-192

Apportionment, 114

Appropriation bills, knowledge of
state government derived from,

112; made dear, 279; method

with, 289

Appropriations, budgetary, 118
Appropriations Committee. See

Ways and Means Committee
Appropriations for public works,

237

Architect, State, 180
Arndt, Walter, 231
Arsenal, State, 183
Assemblyman, 47-138; at the Con-
stitutional Convention, 100-130;

salary, 131, 138
Assemblymen, special election for,

196
"Associated Industries, Inc.," 171,

172, 182

Atlantic Monthly, 314, 317, 321
Awakening, 55-99

Bank, housing, 241

Bar Association, 193

Bar room rail joke, 327

Barge Canal, 289

Barnes, William, 97, 101, 103, 104,

III, 120

Baruch, Bernard M., 187

Beckley, J. N., 189

Beecher, Henry Ward, 46

Beer and light wines, 324, 328, 329

Bens, Mrs. Howard, 171

Bigotry, religious, 311, 313, 320

Birth, 4

Bismarck, 121

Black Horse Cavalry, 80, 98

Blackmail, 98

Blauvelt direct primary bill, 96

Bond issues, 173, 174; for construc-
tion of State Institutions, 119,
226

Bonds for ports and bridges, 267

Borah, William E., 209

Bowlder Dam, 271, 272

Boyhood, 3-25

Boyle, Edward F., 189

[341]

INDEX

Boys and girls, companionship be-
tween, 30

Brady, Peter A., 188

Brandeis, Louis Dembitz, 198

Brennan, George E., 305

Bridges, bonds for, 268

Brooklyn Academy speech, delight
in, 161

Brooklyn Bridge, opening, 13

Brooklyn Manhattan Transit acci-
dent, 161

Bryan, William Jennings, 49, 304;
attack on machine politics, 97

Budget, Executive, 220, 225, 233,
280

Budget appropriations, 118

Budget reform, 103

Budgets made clear, 279

Buffalo Commercial, 319

Bureau of Municipal Research,
246

Business and Ideals, 278-302

Cabinet members, religion, 186, 313
Campaign methods, 214
Campaigning principles, 152-161
Campbell, Henry, 24, 46, 54
Campbell, Timothy J., 47
Canada, water power treaty, 266
Canal situation, 180, 289-291
Candidates for governorship, 166
Candidates for presidency, 309-310
Canneries, one day's rest in the, 71
Catholic Church, and Mexico, 316;

and politics, 311, 313-323
Cawlin, Tom, 55
Chanler, Mrs, Lewis Stuyvesant,

189

Chapin, Dr. Henry D wight, 188
Character and attributes, 334-340
Charter of New York City, on

committee to revise, 56, 143
Chase, Carleton A., 188
Child Labor Committee, New

York, 64
Children, 38
Cities, home rule for. See Home

rule
Citizens' Union, 81, 93, 96, 203,

323 ; endorses Smith for office of

Sheriff, 132

Citizenship, restoration of, 297
City Club of New York, 222

Civil service and women, 207
Civil service upheld, 189
Civil Service Commission, 190
Civil Service Commissioners, 128
Civil Service Reform Association,

190, 191

Cleveland, Dr. Frederick A., 246
Cleveland, Grover, 192, 336
Cleveland convention (progres-
sives), 309
Clubs, 24

Cockran, Bourke, 49, «n, 304
Cohoes Light and Power Company,

269

Colorado River power, 259, 271-273
Colvin, Addison B., 188, 234
Commission on Housing and Re-
gional Planning, 226
Committee of Fifteen, 47
Committee of One Hundred and

Seven, 94

Committee on Insurance, 66
Committee on Safety, 64
Commutations of sentence, 297
Conboy, Mrs. Sarah A., 188
Conservation Act, 262
Conservation Department, 233
Conservation of natural resources,

124
Conservation, water power. See

Water power
Consolidation amendment, New

York State Constitution, 220, 225
Consolidation of State departments,

1 80, 220

Constitution, stand on the new, 139
Constitutional amendments (New

York), 101, 173, 174, 220-231
Constitutional amendments (U. S.),

332

Constitutional Convention, 1915,
100-130, 264, 275, 318

Constitutional reorganization, ad-
vocacy of, 129

Consumers' League, 64, 87

Contract, 41

Conventions, national, 303

Coolidge, Calvin, 290, 310

Cornell College of Agriculture, 294

County fairs, 292

County units, 294

Court of Claims, 109

Courtship, 33

[342]

INDEX

Cox, James M., 46

Creed, 317

"Cross of Gold" speech of Bryan,

Dam, Colorado River, 271, 272
Davenport, F. M., cited, 147
Davis, John W., 231, 310
Day, Jonathan C., 149
Delegates, attitude toward, 203
Delinquency, treatment of, 296
Democratic party, lack of unity,

308
Democrats, Irish, in New York

City, 43

Denominational schools, 319
Direct primaries, 90, 96
Divver, Patrick, 40
Dougherty, Henry L., 261
Drama, interest in the, 20, 25, 28
Dreier, Mary, 171, 205
Dress, 17
Dry and wet problem, 313, 324-

Duffy, Rev. Francis P., 315
Dunn, Catherine, 33
Du Pont de Nemours, E. L, and
Company, 261

Earnings of prisoners, 299
East Side, life on the, 3, 12
"East Side, West Side/' 304
Economic Club speech, 173, 221
Economy in state government, 168
Edison Electric Company, 265, 266
Education, 338; craving for, 61
Education, agricultural, 292-294
Education, Catholic control, 322
Education, Commissioner of, 286;

method of appointment, 322
Education, Department of, 322
Education, public, 283-286
Edwards, Big Bill, 131
Eighteenth Amendment, 328, 332
Eisner, Mark, 131
Elkus, Abram L, 151, 187
Elocution. See Public speaking
Employers' Liability Act, 83-86;

amendment, 85

Enforcement of labor laws, 182
Equal pay bill for teachers, 283
Erie Canal, 289
Estimate and Apportionment,

Board of, 143

Evans, Henry, 189

Executive abilities, 199

Executive budget, 220, 225, 233, 280

Facing the Nation, 303-333

Factory Code, 181

Factory Commission. See State Fac-
tory Investigating Commission

Factory investigation, 125, 205

Fairs, county, 292

Farms and Markets, Department
of, 291

Farrelly, Father, 8

Father, 10

Federation of Labor. See New
York State Federation of Labor

Fess, Senator, 327

Financial reports, clarity of, 279

Finley, Dr. John H., 323

Fire department, connection with
the, 1 8

Flynn of the Bronx, 208

Foley, James A., 105, 231

Foley, Tom, 40, 44, 210, 212 ; cited,
50; Smith's tribute to, 52; fu-
neral, 54; opponent of suffrage,
90

Foley, Mrs. Tom, 54

Forty-eight-hour bill, 170-172

Four-year .term for Governor, 220,
225, 234

Fourth Ward, 3, 6; politics in the,
40-54

Franklin, Benjamin, 196

Free speech, 194, 198

Friedsam, Michael, 188

Friedsam bill, 285

Friedsam Commission, 285

Frontier Corporation, 261, 265

Fulton Fish Market, 22

General Electric Company, 261,

265
Germans, sympathy with social

tastes of the, 29
Gilchrist, John F., 152, 183
Gill bill, 82

Girls, virtues of Catholic, 30
Gitlow, Benjamin, 198
Gladstone, William, 279
Goldmark, Pauline and Josephine,

205
Good, Mrs. William H., 189

[343]

INDEX

Gott, Bertha Mary, 38
Government, greatest master of, in

state, 129

Government units, 294
Governor, duties of, 223
Governor, length of term, 220, 225,

234
Governorship, nomination for, 149 ;

campaign, 151-162; election, 163;

in office, 165-340
Grade crossings, 174, 238
Grady, Tom, 81
Graft in Tammany, 43
Grandchildren, 38
Graves, George B., 185
Graves, Mark, 183
Greeks, government unit, 294
Greene, Col. Frederick Stuart, 176,

179, 180, 238, 289, 290
Grifenhagen, Sheriff, 132
Griffen, Delegate, 108

Hamilton, Alexander, 334

Hamilton, John Alan, 187

Hanna, Mark, 49

Harbor of New York, port facil-
ities, 145

Haskell, Gen. William N., 186

Hastings, Mrs. Harry, 188

Haviland, Dr. Floyd S., 186

Health. See also Public health

Health of the workers, 65

Hearings, conduct at, 203

Hearst, William Randolph, 144,
210

Hearst papers, 210, 212

Hess, Anne, 38

Highway Commissioner, 176

Highway Department, 176-180

Hill-McCue bill, 88

Hilles, Charles D., 270

Holmes, Justice, 198

Home life, 19

Home rule, 96, 116, 127, 294

Hospitals, State, 238

Housing policy, State, 165, 218, 226,
239-246, 276

How a Twig was Bent, 3-39

Hughes, Charles Evans, 56, 82, 102,

143, 176, 193, 221, 222, 230-232,

259, 260, 268, 336

Hughes Committee, 231, 233, 234,
294

Hylan, John F., 144, 162, 174, 207;
Smith's estimate of, 145

Hydro-electric power. See Water
power

Hydro-electric resources, St. Law-
rence River, 260

Ideals and Business, 278-302

In the Governor's Chair, 165-217

Income tax, reduction of, 287

Independence, reasons for, 192

Industrial Board, 68, 181

Industrial Hygiene, Bureau of, 182

Influenza epidemic, 162

Institutions, State. See State insti-
tutions

Insurance, Committee on, 66

Insurance Fund, 182

Intervention, right of, 316

"Inverse order bill," 191

Irish Democrats in New York
City, 43, 45

Irish flag hung on City Hall, 45

Jefferson, Thomas, 196, 314, 320,

Jerome, William Travers, 47
Job, first regular, 22
Johnson, Alfred J., 188
Joint Legislative Conference, 171
Jones, Sullivan W., 180
Judges, qualifications of, 300
Judiciary Article, 109

Kean, Father John J., 8, 31, 337
Kelley^ Mrs. Florence, 205
Kelly, "Honest" John, 47
Knight, Senator, 229, 254
Knights of Columbus, 316
Know Nothing Party, 320
Ku Klux Klan, 321, 323

Labor, Commissioner of, 171, 181,

182
Labor code of New York State, 64,

69
Labor Department, 68, 168, 169,

181, 182

Labor laws, 68, 87, 168, 181
La Follette, Robert M., 309
Land Board, 249, 252
Lansing, Gerrit Y., 187
Larkin, Jim, 197

[344]

INDEX

Law, knowledge of, 300

Lawlor, Thomas, 304

League of Women Voters, 171

Legislation, interest in business
side of, 59

Legislative Labor News, tribute to
Smith, 135

Legislature, responsibility of, 236;
budget power, 282

Legislature, 1913, remedial meas-
ures for wage-earners passed, 68

Legislature and its Reorganiza-
tion, Committee on, 114

Levy, Aaron J., 96

Liberal tendency, 112, 192

Light wines and beer, 324, 328, 329

Lincoln, Abraham, 296

Liquor interests, legislation favor-
able to, 94

Liquor question, 313, 324-333

Living wage bill, 171

Lockwood Committee, 244

Long green, 98

Long Island park situation, 247

Long Sault Development Company,
264

Lord, Gen., 280

Low, Seth, 104

Lowell, S. J., 189

Lowman, Lt.-Gov., 225

Loyalty test for teachers, 194

Lusk, Senator, 194

Lusk bills, 192

MacDonald, Alexander, 184

Machine politics, knowledge of,
79; emerging from, 128; Bryan's
hostility to, 97

Machold, H. Edmund, 226, 230,
231, 257

Machold-Sweet bill, 91

Mack, Norman E., 189, 305

Macy, V. Everit, 189

Madison Square Garden conven-
tion, 305

Major Purposes, 218-277

Majority leader, 69

M alone Light and Power Com-
pany, 262

Manufacturers' lobby, 171-172, 181

Markets, City, initiated by Mit-
chel, 147; endorsed by Smith, 148

Markets, Department of, 291, 292

[345]

Marling, Alfred E., 189, 219

Marriage, 37

Marshall, Charles R., 314-316

Marshall, Louis, 102, 106

Massachusetts, reorganization, 229

Mastery, Proving his, 100-130

McAdoo, William G., 303, 310, 312

McAvoy, Judge, 208

McCall, John C, 188

McGinnies, Speaker, 229, 230

McLaughlin, George V.t 183

Medical Practice Act, 294

Memory, 26, 58, 113, 153

Mereness, C. S., 102 ':*

Merit system upheld, 189

Merrill, John J., 183

Merritt, Ed., 97, 99

Messages, annual, 166

Metropolitan Opejra House speech,

Mexican policy, 316
Middleman, proposals for the

elimination of the, 147
Milk supply charges, 211
Miller, Gov. Nathan L., 145, 166,

168, 181, 184, 215, 226, 267, 269,

274, 281, 300
Mills, Harriet May, 186
Mills, Ogden L., 167, 1^3, 215, 217,

222, 258, 273

Mills campaign, 215

Minimum wage for women, in,

122-124
Minorities, belief in the rights of,

149

Minority leader, 69
Mississippi Rive*, water power,

271
Mitchel, John Purroy, 142; city

markets initiated hyt 147
Moreland Act, 87
Moses, Robert, 186, 2*9, 234
Moskowitz, Henry, 147
Mother, 14, 212, 337
Mothers' pensions, 87, 122
Motion made from floor of Assem-
bly, change in form, 56
Mullan-Gage Act, 170, 525, 329-

331

Mulvihill, Peter, 18
Municipal Research, Bureau of,

246
Munsey, Frank, 2oa

INDEX

Murphy, Charles Francis, 48, 81,
93, 96-98, 131, 175, 211, 305, 306
Muscle Shoals, 271

National conventions, 303

National interest in Smith, 303

National politics in state cam-
paigns, 234

Natural resources. See Conserva-
tion of natural resources; Parks;
Water power

New York City charter, on com-
mittee to revise, 56, 143

New York, Democratic Convention
at, 1924, 304

New York City, East Side life, 3,
12

New York City leader, 127

New York City, plans for im-
provement of public utilities, 148

New York City Police Commis-
sioner, 183

New York State, reorganization,
218-235

New York State Agricultural So-
ciety, 292

New York State Association, 227,
234, 246, 323

New York State Board of Hous-

ing, 240

New York State Federation of
Labor, Smith the favorite repre-
sentative of, 64; report on fac-
tory investigation, 68

New York Child Labor Committee,
64

New York, Port Authority, 145,
267-276

New York Stock Exchange, move-
ment to reform, 95

Newcombe, Richard S., 189

Newsboys, speech to, 141

Newspaperman's stunt dinner, 281,
288

Newspaper men, relations with,
202

Newspapers. See Press

Niagara Falls, 92

Niagara River power, 266

Nicoll, Delancy, 102

Nicoll, Dr. Matthias, Jr., 52

Nicoll, Dr. Matthias F., 185

Nixon, James L., 319, 320

Non-partisan appointments* 173*

192

Nooley, Robert, 24
Northeastern Power Company, 265

O'Brien, Morgan J., 103
Office methods of Smith, 199
Olcott, William M. I., 188
Old Neighbors' Club, 27
Olvany, Judge, 208
Opposition an asset, 169
Oratory. See Public speaking
Ordway, Judge, 191
Osborne, Thomas Mott, cited, 135
Osborne, William Church, 150, 231
Oswego-Hudson River route, 290
Ovation in Assembly Hall, 103

Pardons, 296

Parish of St. James. See St James,

parish of

Park Council, 249, 252
Parks, State, 218, 226, 246-256
Parsons, Dr. Frederick W., 186
Parsons, Herbert, 103, 125
Parties and platforms, 165
Patterson, Thomas V., 189
Perkins, Frances, 181, 205
Personality, 70-80, 153
Pittsburgh Aluminum Company,

264

Platforms and parties, 165
Pledges, fidelity to platform, 83
Police Commissioner, New York

City, 183
Police, State, Superintendent of,

184

Political appointments, 175-192
Political life, early, 42-54; devel-
opment, 55-99; mastery, 100-130;
municipal offices, 131-149; cam-
paigning for governorship, 150-
162; election, 163; as governor,
165-340

Political prisoners, 197
Political units, 294
Politics, understanding of, 192
Port of Albany, 267
Port of New York Authority, 145,

267-276

Power. See Water power
Pratt, John B., 184

[346]

INDEX

Press, tributes from the, 133-137;
relations with, 202

Prisoners' families, attitude toward,
204

Prisoners, policy toward, 296-300

Prisoners, political, 197

Prisons, 226, 296-300

Private ownership of water power,
256-273

Progressive bloc in 1913, 90

Progressive tendency, 112

Progressives, convention, 1924, 509

Prohibition, 313, 324-333

Prosecuting attorneys as leaders,
in

Protective legislation for women,
204

Proving his Mastery, 100-130

Psychiatric hospitals, State, 238

Public Buildings Act, amendment,
236

Public health work, 294

Public ownership of water power,
256-273

Public Schools. See Schools, public

Public Service Commission, 162

Public Service Commissioners, 126

Public Service Department, 232

Public speaking, youthful proficien-
cy in, 20; influence of stage ex-
perience on, 27

Public Utilities, Committee on, 126

Public utilities, valuation, 265

Public utiliti«« of New York City,
148

Public Works, Department of, 180

Quackery, control of, 294
Qualifications of judges, 300
Quinn, Thomas J., x8S

Race track bill, 82

Radicalism, revolutionary, 194,

197

Railroad rates, 291
Raines, John, 80, 97
Rate-making power, 126
Reconstruction Commission, 187,

219-233, 246, 247

Referendum on liquor question, 328
Reformatories, 298
Regents, Board of, 286
Religion of Smith, $11, 313-323

Reorganization, Legislative Com-
mission on, 234

Reorganization of Slate govern-
ment, 218-235

Reporters. See Newspapermen

Republican party, contact with big
business, 44, 64; and the Ways
and Means Committee, 57;
unity, 308

Republican State Committee, Wo-
men's Division, 172

Republicans, cooperation with, 125

Revenue tax. See Tax

Revolutionary radicalism, 194, 197

Rice, William Gorhara, 184, 190

Riis, Jacob, cited, 46

Road Department. See Highway
Department

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 165, 306

Roosevelt, Mrs. Franklin D., 171

Roosevelt, Theodore, 176, 263, 336

Roosevelt, Col. Theodoie, 167, 215,
216, 322, 323

Root, Elihu, 100, 102, 123, 221, 228

Rules Committee, 95

Rural Schools, 285

Sabin, Charles H., 187

Safety, Committee on, 64

St. James, parish of, 3, 7

St. James players, 26

St. James's Union, 31

St. Lawrence River power, 260-
262, 266, 271, 273

Salaries, teachers', 283, 285

Salary as Assemblyman, 131, 138

Salmon River, regulating district,
261

Saloons, 327

San Francisco convention compli-
ments Smith, 304

Saxe, Martin W., 231

Schieffelin, William J., 203

Schiff, Mortimer L., 188

Schneiderman, Rose, 171

School of the Tiger, 40-54

Schools, bills to prevent radicalism
in, 194

Schools, denominational, 319

Schools of agriculture, 293

Schools, public, 283-286, 323

Schulhof, Otto B., 189

Schurman, Jacob G., 104,

[347]

INDEX

Second Assembly District, 40-54
Secretary of State, 186
Seymour Club, 24, 40-47
Sheehan, Blue-Eyed Billy, 306
Sheriff, nominated for office of,

131; in office, 139
Shientag, Bernard L., 171, 181, 182
Shipping Canals, 289-291
Short ballot, 125, 220, 227
Sinn Feiners, 197
Slums, 239
Smith, Alfred Emanuel, Jr., (3rd.),

3.8
Smith, Alfred Emanuel, Sr., 10

Smith, Mrs. Alfred Emanuel. See

Smith, Catherine Dunn
Smith, Arthur, Jr., 38
Smith, Arthur Williams, 38, 150
Smith, Catherine Alice, 38
Smith, Catherine Dunn, 33
Smith, Catherine Mulvihill, 14, 212,

337

Smith, Mrs. Charles Bennett, 184
Smith, Emily Josephine, 38, 184
Smith, Walter, 38
Smith, Walter Joseph, 38
Social legislation, 120-124
Social life in clubs, 24
Social workers, Smith's popularity

among, 65

Socialism charges, 258, 269
Socialist following, 149
Socialist in the Assembly, 107
Socialist Assemblymen unseated,

193

Socialistic housing. See Housing

Socialists, attitude toward, 193

Sons and Daughters of Washing-
ton, 318

"Soup is poisoned," 281

Speaker, 69, 70, 136

Speeches of Smith, 311

Standards and Purchase, Division
of, 184

State, functions and needs of, 278

State Bank, Housing, 241, 276

State Bulletin, 227

State Factory Investigating Com-
mission, 62-69, 71, 87, 135, 205

State government, executive and
administrative organization in
1915, 100; knowledge of, 112
te Housing Board, 276

State Housing Law, 241

State institutions, 169, 226; ap-
pointments, 1 86

State Police. See Police, State

State rights question, 331

Steele, Mrs. Walter W., 188

Steinmetz, Charles P., 188

Stern, M. Samuel, 189

Stillwell, Senator, 96

Stimson, Henry L., 103, 118, 228,
231

Story telling, 73-75

Straus, Oscar S., 320

Strike bills, 80

Subpana service, 24

Sullivan, Big Tim, 48, 80, 93

Sulzer, William, 90, 95

Sun, tributes to Smith, 135, 207

Supreme Court, U. S., on prohibi-
tion, 326, 329

Survey Associates, 265

Swartz, Nelle, 205

Sweet, Representative, 257

Tammany Hall, 175, 207; graft
on, 43 ; contact with big business,
44; Foley's leadership, 40-45;
nature of, affected by campaign
of Jerome and Committee of
Fifteen, 47; Murphy as chief,
93 ; liquor interests favorable to,
93 ; leaders, 105 ; rewards mem-
bers of Legislature, 132; Hy-
lan's appointments given to, 144

Tanner, 128

Tax. See also Income tax

Tax exemption, property, 319

Tax, revenue, 219, 223

Taylor property, 254

Teachers, loyalty test, 194; sal-
aries, 283, 285

Terminal markets, 148

Thayer bill, 249-256

Theaters, East Side, 28

Theatricals, amateur. See Drama

Thorn bill, 86

Thornton and Lawlor, 304

Tiger, School of the, 40-54

Tilden, Samuel J., 47, 114, 335

Times, 174, 256, 280, 286, 323

Times Union, 136

de Tocqueville, 196

Transit Commission, 232

[348]

INDEX

Transit construction in New York

City, expenditure for, 126
Tribune, tribute to Smith, 133
Tweed, Boss, 47

United States, water power proj-
ects, 272

United States Supreme Court See
Supreme Court

United States Trucking Company,
274

Units of government, 294

Untermyer, Samuel, 244, 261

U'Ren, George, 91

Utter, Frank B., 184

Van Namee, George, 185

Voice, 70

Volstead Act, 326, 328-333

Wadsworth, James, 56, 213, 242

Wage bill, 171

Wagner, Robert F., 82, 105, 136,
144, 165, 206, 213

Wald, Lilian, 205

Walker, James J., 168, 183, 207

Walsh, Thomas J., 312

Ward, William L., 250

Warder, Frank H., 184

Warner, Maj. John Adams, 38,
184

Warner, Mary Adams, 38

Water Control Commission, 261

Water power, 91, 218, 226, 232, 233,
256-276

Water Power Commission, 232, 233,
260, 264, 265

Water transportation, 289-291

Ways and Means Committee, 57,
59, 62, 125, 276; chairmanship,
69, 72 ; knowledge of State gov-
ernment derived from service on,

1X2

Welfare, desire to promote, 68 ;

measures, 168
Westchester County, stand on

parks, 250
Wet and dry problem, 313, 324-

White, William Allen, 59, 256
Whitman, Charles S., 161, 169, 190,

231
Wickersham, George W., 102, 103,

127, 231, 319
Widows' pensions, 87, 122
Wife, 33

Williams, Arthur, 188
Wilson, Joe, 42
Wilson, Wood row, 90, 97, 126,

198, 309
Wit, 73-78

Woman suffrage, 90, 206
Woman's Trade Union League, 171
Women, attitude toward, 204-207
Women, minimum wage for, in.

122-124
Women, protective legislation, 87,

204
Women in Industry, Bureau of,

182

Women's bills, 170-172
Women's City Club, 171
Women's Division of Republican

State Committee, 172
Women's Party, 204
Women's University Club, 206
Work, capacity for, 72; methods,

172
Workmen's Compensation Law, 83-

87, 121, 124, 168, 169, 181, 182
World, 305
World Court, 166

Yale, Jack, 75, 96, 98
Young Women's Christian Asso-
ciation, 171

[349]

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May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list.

UNDER THE TONTO RIM

TAPPAN'S BURRO

THE VANISHING AMERICAN

THE THUNDERING HERD

THE CALL OF THE CANYON

WANDERER OF THE WASTELAND

TO THE LAST MAN

THE MYSTERIOUS RIDER

THE MAN OF THE FOREST

THE DESERT OF WHEAT

THE U. P. TRAIL

WILDFIRE

THE BORDER LEGION

THE RAINBOW TRAIL

THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT

RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE

THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS

THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN

THE LONE STAR RANGER

DESERT GOLD

BETTY ZANE

THE DAY OF THE BEAST

*******
LAST OF THE GREAT SCOUTS

The life story of "Buffalo Bill" by his sitter Helen Cody
Wetmore, with Foreword and conclusion by Zane Grey.

ZANE GREY'S BOOKS FOR BOYS

ROPING LIONS IN THE GRAND CANYON
KEN WARD IN THE JUNGLE
THE YOUNG LION HUNTER
THE YOUNG FORESTER
THE YOUNG PITCHER
THE SHORT STOP

THE RED-HEADED OUTFIELD AND OTHER
BASEBALL STORIES

GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK

RAFAEL SABATINI'S NOVELS

May be had wherever boohs are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list

JUST a diminutive city of the Italian Marches, was the
birthplace of Rafael Sabatini, and here he spent his
early youth. The city is glamorous with those centu-
ries the author makes live again in his novels with all their
violence and beauty.

Mr. Sabatini first went to school in Switzerland and from
Lycee of Oporto, Portugal, and like Joseph Conrad, he has
never attended an English school. But English is hardly
an adopted language for him, as he learned it from his
mother, an English woman, who married the Maestro-
Cavaliere Vincenzo Sabatini.

Today Rafael Sabatini is regarded as " The Alexandra
Dumas of Modern Fiction."

THE TRAMPLING OF THE LILIES
THE GATES OF DOOM
THE STROLLING SAINT

THE BANNER OF THE BULL
THE CAROLINIAN
SAINT MARTIN'S SUMMER
MISTRESS WILDING

FORTUNE'S FOOL

BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

THE SNARE

CAPTAIN BLOOD

THE SEA-HAWK

SCARAMOUCHE

GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK

NOVELS OF FRONTIER LIFE

WILLIAM . MAC LEOD RAINE

May be had whtrtver books art sold. Ask for Grostet and Dunlap's list.

BONANZA

BIG-TOW^gROUND-UP, THE

BRAND BLOTTERS

BUCKY O'CONNOR

CROOKED TRAILS AND STRAIGHT

DAUGHTER OF THE DONS, A

DESERT'S PRICE, THE

FIGHTING EDGE,"THE

GUNSIGHT PASS

HIGHGRADER, THE

IRONHEART

MAN FOUR-SQUARE, A

MAN-SIZE

MAVERICKS

OH, YOU TEX !

PIRATE OF PANAMA, THE

RIDGWAY OF MONTANA

ROADS OF DOUBT

SHERIFF'S SON.THE

STEVE YEAGER

TANGLED TRAILS

TEXAS RANGER, A

TROUBLED WATERS

VISION SPLENDID, THE

WYOMING

YUKON TRAIL, THE

'GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK

BOOTH TARKINGTON'S NOVELS

May be had wherever books aro sold. Aak for feosaot & Dunlap's list.

THE MIDLANDER

THE FASCINATING STRANGER

GENTLE JULIA

ALICE ADAMS

RAMSEY MILHOLLAND

THE GUEST OF QUESNAY

THE TWO VAN REVELS

THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS

MONSIEUR BEAUCAIRE

SEVENTEEN

PENROD

PENROD AND SAM

THE TURMOIL

THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA

THE FLIRT

GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

PETER B. KYNE'S NOVELS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Groseet and Ounlap's list.

MONEY TO BURN

The exciting adventures of Elmer Clarke with his suddenly
acquired million.

THE ENCHANTED HILL

A gorgeous story with a thrilling mystery and a beautiful girL

NEVER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET

A romance of California and the South Seas.

GAPPY RICKS RETIRES

Cappy retires, but the romance of the sea and business, keep
calling him back, and he comes back strong.

THE PRIDE OF PALOMAR

When two strong men clash and the under-dog has Irish blood
in his veins — there's a tale that Kyne can telL

KINDRED OF THE DUST

Donald McKay, son of Hector McKay, millionaire lumber king,
falls in love with " Nan of the sawdust pile."

THE VALLEY OF THE GIANTS

The fight of the Cardigans, father and son,*to hold the Valley
of the Giants against treachery.

CAPPY RICKS

Cappy Ricks gave Matt Peasley the acid test because he knew
it was good for his soul.

WEBSTER^ MAN'S MAN

A man and a woman hailing from the " States," met with a
revolution while in Central America. Adventures came so thick
and fast that their love affair had to wait for a lull in the game.

CAPTAIN SCRAGGS

This sea yarn recounts the adventures of three rapscallion sea-
faring men.

THE LONG CHANCE

Harley P. Hennage is a gambler, the best and worst man of San
Pasqual and there is the lovely Donna.

GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

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